Of 


THE  PULPIT 
AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 


BY 

ARTHUR  S.  HOYT 


The  Work   of   Preach- 
ing 

Vital    Elements    of 
Preaching 


THE  PULPIT 
AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 


BY 

ARTHUR  S.  HOYT 

Professor  of  Homiletics  and  Sociology 
Auburn  Theological  Seminary 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1921 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1921, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  January,  1921 


In  ^emoris  ot 

THE  ONE  HUNDRED  YEARS 
OF  AUBURN  SEMINARY  AND 
THE  MEN  IT  HAS  GIVEN  TO 
THE   AMERICAN    PULPIT 


THE  INTRODUCTION 

Shortly  before  his  death,  the  late  Bishop  Henry  C. 
Potter  of  New  York  published  a  book  on  Eminent 
Churchmen  he  had  known.  Among  the  number  thus 
treated  were  great  English  Churchmen  like  Dean  Stan- 
ley of  Westminster  Abbey,  Canon  Liddon  of  St.  Paul's, 
the  present  Bishop  of  London,  Dr.  Winnington- 
Ingram ;  and  among  Americans,  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks, 
our  greatest  preacher  and  one  of  the  noblest  Ameri- 
cans. The  literary  critic  of  a  New  York  daily,  after 
praising  the  literary  work  of  the  book,  added  the 
depreciatory  comment  that  it  was  a  pity  so  much  abil- 
ity and  labor  were  spent  upon  men  whose  work  was 
"  entirely  aside  from  the  main  currents  of  human  in- 
terests." 

Bishop  Potter  himself  is  sufficient  answer  to  this 
common  and  superficial  estimate  of  the  preacher.  He 
was  not  only  pastor  of  churches  in  Troy,  Boston,  and 
New  York,  and  finally  Bishop  of  the  most  important 
diocese  of  his  denomination,  but  by  virtue  of  his  char- 
acter, position,  and  attainment  was  a  force  in  the  higher 
life  of  the  city  and  nation.  He  was  the  first  to  point 
out  the  larger  work  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  He  was  a 
pioneer  in  adapting  the  Church  to  its  changed  environ- 
ment. He  taught  unflinchingly  the  social  implications 
of  Christian  doctrine.  He  proclaimed  the  social  duties 
of  the  new  industrial  order.  He  exposed  the  shame  of 
a  corrupt  public  life.     He  was  a  citizen  Bishop.     No 

vii 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

man  did  more  for  the  higher  life  of  the  city  he  loved. 
And  he  was  a  force  in  the  national  life,  in  the  highest 
sense  a  Christian  patriot. 

In  this  time  of  social  rebuilding,  it  is  well  to  turn 
the  thought  to  the  forces  that  are  really  creative  and 
constructive.  The  popular  thought  is  too  apt  to  be 
superficial.  Men  talk  of  stabilizing  the  world  when 
they  mean  only  return  to  normal  production.  They 
forget  that  the  world  has  been  shaken  by  the  clash  of 
great  ideals  —  and  that  peace  is  a  spiritual  attain- 
ment—  only  through  justice  and  mercy  and  humility. 
Christianity  has  to  do  with  the  contests  of  our  age  and 
is  involved  in  their  outcome. 

We  should  know  what  the  teachers  of  our  faith 
have  said,  how  far  they  have  been  prophetic,  and  how 
far  they  have  come  short  of  their  mission.  The  critics 
of  the  pulpit  are  not  necessarily  hostile  to  religion. 
They  may  misinterpret  its  spirit  and  minimize  its  at- 
tainment. 

In  no  other  country  has  public  speech  been  so  exalted 
and  the  pulpit  had  such  an  opportunity.  Why  then, 
they  ask,  has  Christian  ethics  a  partial  hold  upon  the 
people?  Why  have  the  thought  and  conscience  of  the 
age  not  been  Christianized?  The  spirit  of  caste  too 
largely  controls  the  relationship  of  men  and  coopera- 
tion among  the  nations  is  held  impossible,  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  nature.  There  are  earnest  men  who  think 
Christianity  indifferent  to  the  sore  burdens  of  toil,  and 
impotent  or  criminally  complacent  to  the  evils  of  war 
and  of  a  false  nationalism. 

Then  there  is  a  social  idealism  working  far  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  Church:  it  emphasizes  the  value  of 
social  action  and  discounts  the  power  or  use  of  the 
sermon.     While  men  in  stately  pulpits  are  talking  re- 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

ligion,  many  whom  the  "  preacher  cannot  school "  are 
living  the  message  of  Jesus  among  those  who  toil  and 
suffer. 

And  a  growing  number  of  *'  intellectuals,"  often 
children  of  the  Prophets  and  the  Covenant,  who  de- 
mand self-expression  as  the  way  of  truth  and  life, 
regard  the  preacher  as  the  voice  of  an  outworn  past. 
The  *'  intellectual "  is  not  the  least  interested  in  the 
work  of  the  pulpit.  **  He  is  not  filled  with  hatred 
for  religion,  as  were  the  philosophers  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century;  he  simply  ignores  it  as  a  force  incapable  of 
good  or  evil." 

Yet  through  the  Babel  of  voices  and  the  confusion 
of  moral  ideas,  the  heart  of  the  race  shows  its  craving 
for  God,  and  now  as  ever  listens  to  the  man  who  can 
speak  of  the  realities  of  religion. 

The  pulpit  needs  to  be  heartened  as  to  its  place  and 
function  in  modem  life.  And  the  age  needs  to  be 
shown  that  the  ideals  of  personal  and  social  progress, 
the  principles  of  individual  character  and  national 
worth,  are  vitally  connected  with  the  men  who  have 
taught  through  the  generations  —  the  shining  truths  of 
the  Christian  Gospel.  It  is  time  to  interpret  the  past 
and  take  good  reckoning  for  the  future. 

The  following  lectures  aim  to  interpret  the  work  of 
the  preachers  who  have  best  represented  their  age  and 
been  prophetic  and  directive  of  spiritual  and  social 
advance. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Introduction        .....**...  vii 

The  Puritan  Preacher i 

Jonathan  Edwards 19 

Lyman  Beecher 40 

William  Ellery  Channing 70 

Horace  Bushnell .  86 

Henry  Ward  Beecher 107 

Phillips  Brooks,  the  Man  and  the  Preacher  .     .  130 

The  Old  and  New  Evangelism 153 

Some  Distinctive  Contributions  to  the  American 

Pulpit 171 

The  Present  American  Pulpit 226 

The  Pulpit  and  Social  Welfare 243 

The  Pulpit  and  the  Nation 264 


THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 


I 

THE   PURITAN    PREACHER 

There  are  three  pictures  in  literature  of  the  Colonial 
minister  more  vivid  and  enduring^  than  any  record  of 
history  or  volumes  of  sermons.  I  refer  to  Thackeray's 
picture  of  the  clergyman  of  Virginia,  Irving's  sketch  of 
the  Dutch  Dominie,  and  Hawthorne's  portrait  of  the 
parson  of  New  England. 

In  "  The  Virginians,"  Thackeray  does  not  give  a  fa- 
vorable impression  of  the  men  who  acted  both  as 
preacher  and  teacher  in  the  easy-going  and  worldly  set- 
tlements along  the  James.  *'  Harmless  Mr.  Broadbent," 
and  the  young  Chaplain  Ward  with  his  "great,  glib 
voice  and  voluble  commonplaces  "  are  not  pleasant  types 
to  look  upon.  "  Unlike  many  of  the  neighboring  prov- 
inces, Virginia  was  a  Church  of  England  Colony;  the 
clergymen  were  paid  by  the  State  and  had  glebes  al- 
lotted to  them;  and  there  being  as  yet  no  Church  of 
England  Bishops  in  America,  the  Colonists  were  ob- 
liged to  import  their  divines  from  the  Mother  Country. 
Such  as  came  were  not  naturally  of  the  very  best  or 
most  eloquent  kind  of  pastors.  Noblemen's  hangers- 
on,  insolvent  parsons  who  had  quarreled  with  justice 
or  the  bailiff,  brought  their  stained  cassocks  into  the 
colony  in  the  hopes  of  finding  a  living  there."     Such  a 


2  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

picture  gives  us  a  sympathy  with  Colonel  Esmond  in  his 
"  suspicion  of  all  Cassocks." 

But  it  is  a  question  whether  the  suspicion  is  just. 
The  times  were  worldly  and  skeptical,  and  the  people 
that  settled  the  Southern  Colonies  were  very  different 
in  their  social  and  religious  ideas  from  their  stern 
brethren  of  the  North.  No  doubt  the  clergymen  par- 
took somewhat  of  the  easier  and  looser  ways.  The 
fact  that  the  law  compelled  them  to  preach  in  the  fore- 
noon and  catechize  in  the  afternoon,  and  '*  not  to  give 
themselves  to  excess  in  drinking  or  playing  at  dice,  or 
any  unlawful  game,  but  at  all  times  hear  or  read  some- 
what of  the  Holy  Scriptures,"  proves  at  least  that  they 
were  too  susceptible  to  the  worldliness  of  their  parishes. 
Yet  there  were  good  men  among  them.  Whitefield 
found  the  fields  ready  for  his  reaping.  "  Take  them 
all  in  all,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  we  must  conclude 
that  the  English  clergymen  in  America  proved  them- 
selves useful,  worthy,  important,  acceptable.  They  did 
not  share  in  public  life  to  the  extent  that  their  brethren 
of  the  profession  did  in  the  North.  Conditions  were 
such  that  their  functions  were  restricted  to  the  tasks 
which  centered  in  the  Church."  The  gentle  Christian 
influence  of  Robert^JJunt,  the  first  minister,  has  been 
called  the  salt  that  saved  the  Colony  from  utterly  per- 
ishing of  its  vices.  There  were  Richard  Buck,  sent 
out  by  the  Puritan  Bishop  of  London,  and  Alexander 
Whittaker,  the  Apostle  of  Virginia. 

New  Amsterdam  was  a  commercial  enterprise  of  the 
thrifty  Dutch  India  Company,  and  not  founded  like 
Plymouth  under  the  impulse  of  freedom  to  worship 
God.  But  the  Hollanders  had  purchased  their  liberty 
at  a  great  price  and  they  brought  their  religion  with 
them.     But  it  was  nearly  twenty  years  before  Jonas 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  3 

Michaelius,  the  first  minister  of  the  Gospel,  was  wel- 
comed by  the  270  souls  on  Manhattan.  "  I  keep  my- 
self/' he  wrote,  "  as  far  as  practicable  within  the  pale 
of  my  calling-  wherein  I  find  myself  sufficiently  occu- 
pied/' But  one  of  his  successors,  Dominie  Bogardus, 
did  not  fail  to  interest  himself  in  the  welfare  of  the 
colony,  and  speak  out  against  the  evil  practices  of  the 
governors.  Van  Twiller  and  iKieft  (satirized  by  Irv- 
ing). '*What  are  the  great  men  of  the  country  but 
vessels  of  wrath  and  fountains  of  woe  and  trouble? 
They  think  nothing  but  to  plunder  the  property  of 
others,  to  dismiss,  to  banish,  to  transport  to  Holland." 
The  old  Dominies  —  Michaelius,  Bogardus,  Megapolen- 
sis,  Bacherus,  Selyns  —  are  certainly  an  interesting 
company  of  men.  "  Their  knowledge,  manhood,  service, 
rendered  them  conspicuous  in  the  Colony/'  and  they 
and  their  successors  ministered  to  their  own  people 
with  personal  interest  and  loyalty.  That  they  were 
somewhat  easygoing,  exclusive,  and  arbitrary  in  their 
claims  of  authority,  and  unequal  to  the  aggressive  op- 
portunities of  the  New  World,  is  also  evident.  At  the 
time  of  the  capture  of  New  Amsterdam,  there  were 
three  cities,  thirty  villages  and  ten  thousand  inhabi- 
tants and  but  six  ministers,  and  at  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury the  six  had  dwindled  to  four  —  and  yet  Dominie 
Selyns  in  his  annual  report  could  congratulate  himself 
that  *'  our  number  is  now  full  " —  while  hundreds  of 
Colonists  were  coming  into  the  valley  of  the  Hudson, 
and  ministers  from  New  England  and  missionaries 
from  the  S.  P.  G.  of  the  Mother  Country  were  follow- 
ing their  wandering  sons  into  the  wilderness. 

There  were  men  in  the  Dutch  Church  of  apostolic 
zeal  like  Frelinghuysen,  and  other  Colonies  had  their 
true  apostles.    Anything  like  even  an  outline  history 


4  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

of  the  colonial  pulpit  could  not  fail  to  mention  such 
names  as  John  Woolman,  the  Quaker  preacher,  whose 
journal  edited  by  Whittier  is  one  of  the  classics  of  the 
devotional  life ;  Makemie,  the  founder  of  Presbyterian- 
ism;  the  Tennents  of  Log  College  fame  and  fervid 
evangelists ;  of  the  work  of  Count  Zinzendorf  and  the 
Moravian  preachers  among  the  growing  colonies  of 
Swedes  and  Germans. 

But  we  must  turn  to  New  England  to  find  a  typical 
and  influential  pulpit  of  the  early  time.  The  people 
were  homogeneous.  They  brought  the  heritage  of  com- 
mon ideals ;  they  were  molded  by  similar  environment. 
They  were  providentially  separated  for  the  working 
out  of  the  new  and  higher  type  of  character.  They 
came  to  found  a  godly  commonwealth.  Religion  was 
the  prevailing  tone  of  their  life.  The  minister  was  the 
accepted  leader.  Education  was  to  form  a  capable  and 
godly  ministry.  As  in  the  Scotch  families  described 
by  Mr.  Barrie  and  Ian  Maclaren,  the  first  question 
asked  of  the  child  was  not  *'  What  is  your  name  ?  "  but 
'*  What  are  you  to  be?"  And  one  boy  out  of  every 
family  would  answer,  "  A  minister."  So  the  pulpit  of 
New  England  was  the  distinct  and  distinguishing  fea- 
ture of  their  life.  No  pulpit  ever  had  such  a  chance. 
No  pulpit  ever  developed  such  distinct  types,  or  more 
dominant  ideals.  To  know  the  American  pulpit,  our 
habits  of  thought  and  worship,  our  ideals  and  oppor- 
tunities of  service,  one  must  look  at  the  Puritan  Min- 
ister. 

The  popular  conception  of  the  Puritan  Minister  has 
been  formed  largely  by  fiction,  by  such  portraits  as 
Hawthorne's  Arthur  Dimmesdale  and  Mrs.  Stowe's 
Dr.  Hopkins  —  the  first  a  pure  creation,  the  second 
true  in  the  main  to  a  noble  life.     The  minister  of  "  The 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  5 

Scarlet  Letter  "  has  powerfully  impressed  our  imagi- 
nation. His  separation  from  men,  his  outer  marks  of 
sanctity,  his  unnatural  condemnation  of  life  and  yet 
tempted  as  other  men,  his  introspective  habit,  his  fear- 
ful analysis  of  mental  and  emotional  states,  and  his 
sensitiveness  and  susceptibility  to  the  very  world  of 
sense  that  his  theology  condemned,  makes  him  no 
doubt  true  to  nature  —  the  very  product  of  New  Eng- 
land —  and  yet  in  no  large  sense  representative.  The 
inevitable  impression  of  such  a  portrait  —  that  the  Puri-  ^ 
tan  ministry  were  no  better  than  other  men,  and  at  ^ 
heart  not  as  good  as  they  ought  to  have  been  —  is  false 
to  the  fact. 

At  the  opposite  extreme  is  Mrs.  Stowe's  portrait  in 
''  The  Minister's  Wooing  " —  a  learned  man,  guileless 
as  a  child,  wrapped  up  in  the  abstractions  of  theology  ^ 
and  innocent  of  human  nature  and  most  of  all  of  him- 
self —  an  example  of  absolute  other-worldliness  —  an- 
alyzing the  deepest  and  tenderest  emotions  and  pas- 
sions with  the  coldest  logic,  and  sternly  following  wher- 
ever the  logic  led.  They  are  the  two  extremes  of  the 
Puritan  Minister  —  both  true  and  neither  representa- 
tive. 

No  man  or  class  of  men  is  separate  from  his  fel- 
lows. He  is  both  product  and  force.  We  are  condi- 
tioned by  the  times  in  which  we  live  —  and  in  a  closer 
and  narrower  sense  by  the  local  and  personal  environ- 
ment of  our  lives. 

The  New  England  Minister  was  the  product  of 
Puritanism,  Mr.  John  R.  Green  in  his  *'  History 
of  the  English  People "  has  given  us  the  truest  de- 
scription of  Puritanism  in  its  greatness  and  littleness. 
With  the  open  Bible  a  new  conception  of  life  and  man 
followed  the  gayety  and  adventure  of  the  Elizabethan 


6  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

time.  The  great  problems  of  life  and  death,  the  obsti- 
nate questionings  of  the  soul,  pressed  for  answer. 
Life  gained  in  moral  grandeur,  in  a  sense  of  the  dig- 
nity of  manhood,  in  orderliness  and  equable  force  — 
while  it  lost  in  largeness  of  feeling  and  sympathy. 
The  greatest  gain  of  life,  however,  was  in  the  new 
conception  of  social  equality.  There  was  a  brother- 
hood in  Christ.  The  meanest  peasant  felt  himself  en- 
nobled as  a  child  of  God.  The  proudest  noble  recog- 
nized a  spiritual  equality  in  the  poorest  Saint.  But 
the  bond  to  other  men  was  not  the  sense  of  a  common 
manhood,  but  the  recognition  of  brotherhood  among 
the  elect.  Without  the  pale  of  the  saints  lay  a  world 
which  was  hateful  to  them,  because  it  was  the  enemy 
of  their  God.  Little  things  became  great  things  in  the 
glare  of  religious  zeal.  Life  became  hard,  rigid,  color- 
less, as  it  became  intense. 

Transplant  the  Puritan  into  the  New  World,  with  the 
struggle  for  life  under  new  and  hard  conditions,  the 
contests  with  nature  and  with  savage  men;  men  of 
similar  convictions  and  ideals  together,  cut  off  from 
the  larger  world,  forced  to  develop  their  life  unquali- 
fied by  contact  with  other  types  and  phases  of  life  — 
and  you  have  the  Puritan  atmosphere  of  New  Eng- 
land. They  were  the  favored  of  God.  They  lived 
under  the  great  Taskmaster's  eye.  Earnestness  was 
the  prevailing  note  of  life.  Life  was  in  reality  a  war- 
fare. The  letters  and  diaries  and  sermons  of  the  time 
show  the  lofty  seriousness  of  old  and  young.  The 
contest  of  the  soul  projected  its  shadows  upon  the 
world  about  them.  There  is  almost  no  love  of  nature 
in  these  early  letters  and  poems.  The  gloomy  aisles 
of  the  forests  seemed  at  times  to  be  the  resort  of  evil 
spirits.    The  text  of  Davenport's  first  sermon  at  New 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  7 

Haven,  the  first  message  of  God  to  the  little  company 
of  pioneers  was:  **  Then  was  he  led  up  into  the  wil- 
derness to  be  tempted  of  the  devil." 

*'  Sterile  New  England  was  a  sort  of  half  Hebrew 
theocracy,  half  ultra-democratic  republic  of  little  vil- 
lages, separated  by  a  pathless  ocean  from  all  the  civ- 
ilization and  refinement  of  the  Old  World,  forgotten 
and  unnoticed,  and  yet  burning  like  live  coals  under 
the  obscurity  with  all  the  fervid  activity  of  an  intense, 
newly-kindled,  peculiar  and  individual  life."  ^ 

The  minister  was  the  best  expression  and  the  true 
leader  of  the  New  World  Puritanism.  No  minister 
landed  with  the  Pilgrims.  Their  pastor,  John  Robin- 
son, was  not  permitted  to  see  the  promised  land  to 
which  his  ardent  faith  and  inspiring  word  directed  his 
people.  But  Elder  Brewster  exercised  all  the  gifts 
of  a  pastor.  Every  infant  settlement  had  its  church 
and  clergyman.  The  Puritan  Company  that  had  the 
settling  of  New  England  took  care  that  there  should 
be  '*  plentiful  provision  of  godly  ministers."  The  first 
article  of  settlement  of  the  inland  town  of  Springfield 
provides  for  *' a  godly  and  faithful  minister,  with  all 
convenient  speed,  with  whom  we  propose  to  join  in 
church  covenant,  to  walk  in  all  the  ways  of  Christ." 
And  John  Cotton  wrote  home  to  the  Motherland  that 
there  was  "  nothing  cheap  in  New  England  but  milk 
and  ministers." 

The  meeting  house  was  the  central  building  of  thev^ 
Puritan  town.     The  roads  were  laid  out  in  reference 
to  it,  and  the  village  grew  up  about  it.     The  diflferent 
forms  through  ■  which  the  building  passed  in  colonial 
days  all  preserved  the  central  form  of  the  pulpit.     No 

^  "  Old  Town  Folks." 


8  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

order  of  men  was  ever  more  firmly  established  in  the 
life  of  a  people  than  the  Puritan  Minister. 

And  who  were  the  men  that  stood  in  the  pulpit  — 
the  place  lifted  up  in  the  thought  of  the  people?  They 
represented  the  best  life  of  the  Mother  Country. 
Three  of  them,  Cotton,  Hooker,  and  Davenport,  were 
invited  to  sit  in  the  Westminster  Assembly.  Cotton 
at  the  age  of  twenty-three  had  made  a  reputation  as  a 
preacher  at  Cambridge  University,  and  for  twenty 
years  had  been  vicar  of  the  noblest  parish  church  in 
England,  that  of  St.  Botolph's  of  Boston.  At  last  he 
yielded  his  place  for  larger  liberty  of  prophesying  and 
sought  the  simple  congregation  of  the  wilderness.  He 
was  among  the  first  pastors  of  the  new  Boston.  From 
1630-1647,  during  the  Puritan  immigration,  ninety 
university  men  had  come  to  the  American  churches; 
in  fact,  all  the  early  ministers  were  university  grad- 
uates. "  The  guiding  and  directing  force  of  the  Puri- 
tan churches  was  supplied  by  an  element  which  was 
itself  molded  on  the  banks  of  the  Cam  and  the  Isis, 
under  the  influences  and  refinements  of  the  best  cul- 
ture which  the  England  of  that  day  could  give." 

And  when  the  Puritan  immigration  stopped  —  as  it 
did  with  the  establishment  of  civil  and  religious  liberty 
in  England  —  under  Cromwell,  the  Puritans  of  New 
England  were  able  to  raise  up  and  train  their  own 
ministry,  not  behind  in  ability  —  and  not  much  behind 
in  training,  the  men  that  had  come  from  Oxford  and 
Cambridge.  Hardly  a  score  of  feeble  villages  had 
been  planted  along  the  coast  when  Harvard  was  es- 
tablished —  its  seal,  **  For  Christ  and  the  Church,"  in- 
dicating the  great  purpose  of  its  founders,  to  train  a 
ministry  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  New  World. 
And  as  soon  as  the  settlers  began  to  move  westward, 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  9 

along  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut  and  the  single 
Mother  College  was  not  right  at  their  doors,  Yale  be- 
gan with  the  same  sacred  mission.  The  Church  and 
the  school  were  together  —  and  the  teachers  of  reli- 
gion must  be  picked  men  and  given  the  best  culture 
possible. 

The  first  President  Dwight  of  Yale  described  what 
he  calls  '*  the  progress  of  every  clergyman  .  .  .  until 
he  arrives  at  the  desk.  From  infancy  to  manhood  his 
whole  character  is  subjected  to  the  inspection  of  his 
parents,  of  his  schoolmaster,  of  the  parish  in  which  he 
is  born  and  bred,  of  the  government  of  the  college  in 
which  he  is  educated,  of  the  Church  to  which  he  is 
united  and  of  the  clergyman  by  whom  he  is  instructed 
in  theology."  The  Bible  and  questions  of  religion 
were  an  essential  part  of  the  college  training.  There 
were  no  theological  schools,  but  the  apprenticeship,  as 
it  may  be  truly  called,  of  the  young  man  to  the  study 
and  parish  of  some  eminent  minister  gave  him  a  quick 
entry  into  the  hearts  of  men  and  an  early  understand- 
mg  of  his  great  task  —  though  of  course  not  the 
breadth  of  culture  that  belongs  to  the  modern  school 
of  theology. 

A  man  coming  from  a  community  essentially  reli- 
gious, thus  picked  and  trained,  could  not  fail  to  be  a 
leader  and  leave  his  mark  on  all  life.  Hejvas  ^  lender 
in  education.  For  the  first  century  the  minister  was 
^oth  the  inspirer  and  director  of  schools  and  colleges. 
All  the  professors  and  tutors  were  ministers  or  men 
on  the  way  to  the  calling.  Moses  Hallock  educated  in 
his  own  family  over  300  young  people.  Dr.  Wood 
trained  two  of  his  parishioners  for  college,  Ezekiel 
and  Daniel  Webster.  "  Patrick  Henry  was  always 
ready  to  acknowledge  his  debt  for  instruction  and  in- 


10  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

spiration  to  Samuel  Davies,  whose  style  of  eloquence 
in  the  pulpit  was  the  model  that  he  adopted  in  his 
own  great  speeches."  ^ 

The  Puritan  Minister  created  the  early  literature. 
One  of  the  first  books  published  was  the  **  Bay  State 
Psalm  Book."  And  sermons  and  theological  discus- 
sions were  about  the  only  literature  in  the  hands  of  the 
people.  The  romance  and  drama  of  the  Elizabethan 
age  were  thought  unholy  to  eyes  once  opened  to  the 
heavenly  beauty  and  the  *'  Paradise  Lost "  had  not 
been  written.  The  first  systematic  theology  was  that 
of  President  Willard  of  Harvard  —  series  of  sermons 
that  were  preached  in  the  college  chapel  and  at  the 
South  Church  in  Boston.  The  minister  was  not  a 
religious  recluse,  but  a  man  of  affairs.  He  was  often 
a  farmer  as  well  as  a  preacher,  and  interested  in  every- 
thing that  pertained  to  the  welfare  of  his  fellow  men. 

His  social  position  was  assured.  And  in  civil  mat- 
ters his  voice  was  influential.  There  was  no  separa- 
tion between  sacred  and  secular.  The  State  was  a 
theocracy.  Town  meetings  were  called  in  connection 
with  the  mid-week  lecture  and  opened  by  him  with 
prayer,  and  he  spoke  out  on  practical  matters  with 
other  men.  In  fact  it  was  a  saying  that  New  Eng- 
land was  run  by  the  parsons  and  their  families.  The 
word  parson  itself  sums  up  his  position,  for  it  is  only 
another  word  for  person  —  the  person  of  the  town. 
And  we  must  believe  that  he  won  this  not  by  the  asser- 
tion of  authority  so  much  as  by  his  manhood,  by  the 
rational,  fearless,  practical,  large-hearted  way  that  he 
dealt  with  men  and  affairs.  President  Dwight  de- 
clared that  "  The  real  weight  of  clergymen  in  New 

1 "  Clergy  in  American  Life,"  p.  $. 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  H 

England  consisted  wholly  in  their  influence;  an  influ- 
ence derived  from  their  office  and  their  conduct." 
They  embodied  the  highest  ideals  and  set  forth  the  vital 
principles  of  their  common  activity. 

Cotton  Mather's  "  Magnalia  "  is  the  best  picture  of 
the  life:     *' The  prose  epic  of  New  England  Puritan-  . 
ism,  it  has  been  called,  setting  forth  in  heroic  mood  the  I 
principles,  the  history,  and  the  personal  characters  of  |' 
the  fathers.     The  principles,  theologic  and  disciplinary  jl 
alike,  are  stated  with  clearness,  dignity  and   fervor,  f 
And  the  life-like  portraits  of  the  Lord's  chosen,  though  f 
full  of  quaintly  fantastic  phrases  and  artless  pedan-  ! 
tries,  are  often  drawn  with  touches  of   enthusiastic  , 
beauty."    And   Professor  Wendell   in  his   **  Literary 
History   of   America"   says   that  the   New   England' 
Puritans  "  embodied  first  that  kind  of  restless  versa- 
tility which  characterized  Elizabethan   England,   and 
which  even  to  our  own  day  has  remained  characteristic 
of  New  England  Yankees." 

'And  now  as  to  the  sermons.  They  were  of  goodly 
length  and  the  people  did  not  usually  consider  them  an 
infliction.  The  hour  glass  was  the  monitor  of  length, 
and  when  the  last  sands  were  running  out  the  preacher 
was  drawing  his  application  to  a  close.  Some  sermons 
were  proverbial  for  length.  Mather  Byles  used  to  ^ 
preach  his  one  hour;  then  taking  the  hour  glass  in 
hand  and  turning  it  over,  he  would  say,  "  Now  we  will 
take  a  second  glass,"  and  the  people  made  no  serious 
objection  to  the  witticism  or  the  sermon.  The  texts 
were  commonly  doctrinal  statements  or  accounts  of 
miraculous  events.  The  sermons  were  essentially  doc- 
trinal —  as  much  so  as  Ae  lecture  of  a  theological  class- 
room. Life  was  simple  and  centered  upon  the  great 
themes  of  religion.    The  people  were  able  and  ready 


12  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

to  follow  the  course  of  abstruse  discussion.  There 
were  few  or  no  books  in  their  homes.  No  newspaper 
press  connected  them  with  a  larger  world  and  dis- 
tracted their  attention  to  manifold  interests.  The  ly- 
ceum  had  not  arisen,  with  its  platform  of  free  discus- 
sion. Social  life  was  narrow  and  isolated,  and  so  the 
minister,  trained  to  high  thought,  and  making  the  Bible 
and  its  great  questions  of  being  the  supreme  study, 
poured  the  strength  of  his  mental  and  spiritual  life 
into  the  pulpit.     He  fed  the  people  with  strong  meat. 

The  mid-week  lecture  was  an  expository  sermon, 
taking  some  book  by  course.  John  Cotton  went 
through  the  books  of  the  entire  Bible  in  this  way.  A 
systematic  teaching  of  the  young  was  a  part  of  every 
-\  minister's  work.  '*  Milk  for  Babes  "  by  John  Cotton 
was  used  for  more  than  a  century  and  printed  as  a  part 
of  the  New  England  primer. 

Of  course  the  doctrinal  order  was  broken  by  some 
topic  of  present  interest,  as  when  Mr.  Williams 
preached  against  veils  and  Mr.  Eliot  denounced  wigs, 
long  hair  and  tobacco.  The  doctrine  always  had  its 
practical  bearing;  but  the  sermons,  compared  with 
those  of  the  present  day,  were  abstract  and  speculative, 
and  lacking  in  the  variety  and  reality  of  interest  that 
make  the  strongest  appeal  to  men. 

Neither  was  there  the  warm  and  rich  personality 
that  we  now  expect  in  the  best  preaching.  The  mold 
of  the  thought  was  about  as  fixed  and  mechanical  as 
the  theology.  The  Puritan  divines  were  strong  souls 
that  left  their  idea  of  a  sermon  as  a  form  imposed 
upon  their  successors  for  generations.  **  The  method 
of  sermonizing  was  first  to  unfold  the  text  historically 
and  critically ;  then  raise  from  it  a  doctrine ;  then  bring 
forward  the  proofs,  either  inferential  or  direct;  then 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  1 3 

illustrate  it  or  justify  it  to  the  understanding  by  the 
reasons  drawn  from  the  philosophy  of  the  subject,  or 
the  nature  of  things ;  and  finally  conclude  with  an  im- 
provement by  the  way  of  uses  or  inferences  and  timely 
admonitions  and  exhortations.  These  applications,  or 
uses  and  exhortations  often  formed  the  greater  part  of 
the  discourse." 

John  Robinson  never  came  to  New  England,  but  his 
spirit  came  with  the  little  band  of  exiles,  and  he  can  be 
called  the  first  preacher  of  the  New  World.  A  short 
passage  from  his  farewell  sermon  to  the  Pilgrims  gives 
his  style  and  spirit: 

Brethren,  we  are  now  quickly  to  part  from  one  an- 
other, and  whether  I  may  ever  live  to  see  your  faces  on 
earth  any  more,  the  God  of  Heaven  only  knows;  but 
whether  the  Lord  has  appointed  that  or  no,  I  charge  you 
before  God,  and  His  blessed  angels,  that  you  follow  me 
no  farther  than  you  have  seen  me  follow  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  If  God  reveals  anything  to  you  by  any  other 
instrument  of  His,  be  as  ready  to  receive  it,  as  ever  you 
were  to  receive  any  truth  by  my  ministry ;  for  I  am  verily 
persuaded,  I  am  very  confident,  the  Lord  has  more  truth 
yet  to  break  forth  out  of  His  holy  word.  For  my  part, 
I  cannot  sufficiently  bewail  the  condition  of  the  Reformed 
churches,  who  are  come  to  a  period  in  religion,  and  will 
go  at  present  no  farther  than  the  instruments  of  their 
reformation.  The  Lutherans  cannot  be  drawn  to  go  be- 
yond what  Luther  saw;  whatever  part  of  His  good  will 
our  God  has  revealed  to  Calvin,  they  will  rather  die  than 
embrace  it;  and  the  Calvinists  you  see,  stick  fast  where 
they  were  left  by  that  great  man  of  God,  who  yet  saw 
not  all  things. 

The  freedom  from  human  authority,  the  reverence  for 
the  Scripture,  the  faith  in  larger  things  is  character- 


14  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

istic  of  the  Pilgrim  spirit  that  made  the  progressive 
element  of  New  England  life. 

I  take  another  extract,  this  time  from  Mr,  Hooker, 
who  moved  in  1636  with  his  congregation  from  Cam- 
bridge through  the  wilderness  and  settled  Hartford, 
and  whom  Mr.  John  Fiske,  in  his  **  Beginnings  of  New 
England/'  calls  the  father  of  American  Democracy. 
The  sermon  is  on  the  "  Activity  of  Faith  "  and  has  the 
formal  structure  and  minute  divisions  of  the  time,  but 
a  directness  and  liveliness  quite  his  own,  that  makes  it 
still  good  reading.  The  part  that  I  choose  is  the  **  use'* 
so  called,  the  practical  truth  derived  from  the  doctrine. 
He  has  established  the  doctrine  that  **  Faith  causeth 
fruitfulness  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  those  in  whom 
it  is,"  and  then  he  applies  the  use  in  the  following 
homely  and  pungent  way : 

If  this  be  so,  then  it  falleth  foul,  and  is  a  heavy  bill 
of  indictment  against  many  that  live  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Church.  Go  thy  ways  home,  and  read  but  this  text,  and 
consider  seriously  but  this  one  thing  in  it:  That  whoso- 
ever is  the  Son  of  Abraham  hath  faith,  and  whosoever 
hath  faith  is  a  walker,  is  a  marker;  by  the  footsteps  of 
faith  you  may  see  where  faith  hath  been.  Will  not  this 
then  I  say,  fall  marvelous  heavy  upon  many  souls  that 
live  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  who  are  confident  and 
put  it  out  of  all  question,  that  they  are  true  believers, 
and  make  no  doubt  but  what  they  have  faith?  But  look 
to  it,  wheresoever  faith  is,  it  is  fruitful.  If  thou  art 
fruitless,  say  what  thou  wilt,  thou  hast  no  faith  at  all. 

Alas !  these  idle  drones,  these  idle  Christians,  the 
Church  is  too  full  of  them !  Men  are  continually  hear- 
ing, and  yet  remain  fruitless  and  unprofitable;  whereas 
if  there  were  more  faith  in  the  world,  we  should  have 
more  work  done  in  the  world;  faith  would  set  feet,  and 
hands,  and  eyes,  and  all  on  work.     Men  go  under  the 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  15 

name  of  professors,  but  alas !  they  are  but  pictures ;  they 
stir  not  a  whit;  mark  where  you  found  them  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  year,  as  profane,  as  worldly,  as  loose  in 
their  conversations,  as  formal  in  duty  as  ever.  And  is 
this  faith  ?  O !  faith  would  work  other  matters,  and  pro- 
voke a  soul  to  other  passages  than  these. 

There  is  a  vividness  and  directness  and  practical  power 
in  this  way  of  putting  truth  that  belonged  to  the  early 
Puritans,  and  you  notice  that  the  style  in  its  nervous 
vigor  is  the  style  of  Shakespear  and  the  English  Bible. 

The  doctrines  of  the  older  Calvinism  were  the 
preaching  practically  for  a  hundred  years,  but  with  this 
difference.  The  early  preachers,  Robinson,  Cotton, 
Eliot,  Hooker,  and  men  like  them,  put  the  emphasis 
upon  personal  responsibility  —  using  the  motives  ad- 
dressed to  free  beings. 

But  as  church  life  in  New  England  became  estab- 
lished and  religion  developed  from  within  —  the  isola- 
tion of  their  life  ensuring  the  logical  development  of 
doctrine  —  the  central  truths  of  the  early  Calvinism 
asserted  their  supremacy  —  the  stress  was  placed  more 
and  more  on  God's  part  in  redemption,  and  man  was 
left  practically  passive  and  reHgion  and  preaching  be- 
came formal  and  hard  and  dogmatic. 

Take  up  the  sermons  of  Cotton  Mather  —-fifty  years 
after  Hooker  the  most  voluminous  writer  in  the  early 
literature  —  and  you  feel  at  once  the  change  in  tone 
and  style.  He  has  poetic  elements  —  power  of  vision 
and  feeling,  but  they  are  marred  by  strange  conceits 
and  even  puerilities.  The  interpretation  is  artificial, 
everything  bent  to  establish  formal  doctrine,  and  the 
exhortations  with  which  the  sermon  is  plentifully  sprin- 
kled, seemed  mechanical,  without  light  and  warmth. 
There  is  not  the  reality  of  rich  thought  and  lif^.    There 


l6  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

is  lacking  that  pervasive  spirit  of  humanness  —  knowl- 
edge of  men  and  sympathy  with  them  —  that  charac- 
terizes the  best  preaching  of  every  age. 

An  age  of  stronger  preachers  came  with  Edwards 
and  his  successors.  The  work  of  the  spirit  was  em- 
phasized and  the  discrimination  between  the  Church 
and  the  world  drawn  with  sharper  lines.  The  preach- 
ing of  the  *'  Great  Awakening ''  once  more  dwelt  upon 
man's  choice  and  led  to  revivals  and  great  mission- 
ary movements.  And  yet  the  preaching  was  meta- 
physical rather  than  Scriptural.  They  elaborated  doc- 
trine with  matchless  mental  acuteness.  "  Sermons 
were  arguments,  chains  forged  with  the  set  purpose 
to  hold  in  subjection  the  minds  of  men." 

No  one  has  drawn  a  more  vivid  picture  of  the  later 
Puritan  preacher  than  Mrs.  Stowe  in  **  The  Minister's 
Wooing  " : 

Living  an  intense,  earnest,  practical  life,  mostly  tilling 
the  earth  with  their  own  hands,  they  yet  carried  on  the 
most  startling  and  original  religious  investigations  with 
a  simplicity  that  might  have  been  deemed  audacious,  were 
it  not  so  reverential.  All  old  issues  relating  to  govern- 
ment, religion,  ritual,  and  forms  of  church  organization 
having  for  them  passed  away,  they  went  straight  to  the 
heart  of  things,  and  boldly  confronted  the  problem  of  uni- 
versal being.  They  had  come  out  from  the  world  as 
witnesses  to  the  most  solemn  and  sacred  of  human  rights. 
They  had  accustomed  themselves  boldly  to  challenge  and 
dispute  all  sham  pretentions  and  idolatries  of  past  ages 
—  to  question  the  right  of  Kings  in  the  State,  and  of 
Prelates  in  the  Church;  and  now  they  turned  the  same 
bold  inquiries  towards  the  Eternal  Throne,  and  threw 
down  their  gloves  in  the  lists  as  authorized  defenders  of 
every  mystery  in  the  Eternal  Government.  The  task  they 
proposed  to  themselves  was  that  of  reconciling  the  most 


THE  PURITAN  PREACHER  VJ 

tremendous  facts  of  sin  and  evil,  present  and  eternal, 
with  those  conceptions  of  Infinite  power  and  benevolence 
which  their  own  strong  and  generous  natures  enabled 
them  so  vividly  to  realize. 

Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins  of  Newport,  the  hero  of  the 
**  Minister's  Wooing,"  is  best  known  by  the  doctrine 
attached  to  his  name.  ^*  It  has  been  his  too  exclusively 
known  opinion  that  *  we  should  be  willing  to  be 
damned  for  the  glory  of  God.'  The  fact  that  he  was 
actually  and  very  practically  willing  to  be,  and  was, 
damned  by  many  Newport  gentlemen  and  traders,  for 
his  interference  with  their  business  of  slave-catching 
and  owning,  has  had  scantier  recognition."  His  opin- 
ions that  virtue  is  disinterested  benevolence,  and  that 
moral  perfection  is  the  goal  of  human  life  had  great 
influence  on  the  later  views  of  Edwards  and  are  felt 
a  generation  later  in  Channing's  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity as  '*  the  perfect  life." 

They  were  often  the  poets  of  metaphysical  theology, 
and  built  systems  in  artistic  fervor.  They  presented 
a  lofty  ideal  —  and  as  often  left  men  disheartened  and 
despairing  in  their  inability.  There  wasn't  much  en- 
couragement for  struggling  virtue.  There  was  little 
food  convenient  for  the  lambs  and  the  weaklings.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  they  knocked  out  every  round 
of  the  ladder  but  the  highest  —  and  then  said  to  the 
world,  **  Go  up  and  be  saved." 

And  the  effect  of  this  preaching  is  not  hard  to  trace. 
It  was  preaching  for  an  elect  few,  for  the  hard  think- ^ 
ers  delighting  in  metaphysical  subtleties,  or  the  deeply 
devout  natures  wlio  longed  after  an  unworldly  ideal  — 
but  not  food  for  the  multitude  who  must  be  won 
through  human  affections  and  the  sacraments  of  love. 

The  first  generation  were  picked  men.     They  were 


l8  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

all  religious,  and  they  had  things  their  own  way.  All 
the  circumstances  of  life  were  helps  to  religion.  Their 
children  were  not  in  daily  contact  with  a  Godless  world. 
And  yet  the  children  did  not  become  church  members. 
In  the  second  generation  but  one  in  four  of  the  men 
were  professing  Christians.  The  sermons  and  dis- 
cussions of  the  time  —  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  —  are  full  of  pathetic  complaint  of  *'  The  great 
unfruitfulness  under  the  means  of  grace."  There  was 
a  steady  declension  of  spiritual  life  under  high  Calvin- 
ism until  the  revival  movements  under  Edwards  and 
his  successors  modified  the  doctrines  and  preached  the 
Gospel  with  saving  power.  The  Puritan  preacher  en- 
nobled and  exalted  the  few  who  were  able  to  receive 
his  truth,  but  to  the  many  his  truth  was  a  hard  say- 
ing—  and  many  thoughtful  sensitive  natures  were  left 
without  peace  and  happiness.  But  they  were  loyal  to 
truth  —  as  they  saw  it.  They  revered  conscience  as 
their  King.  God's  will  was  supreme.  And  they  have 
left  as  a  permanent  deposit  in  our  laws  and  institutions 
and  literature  and  ideals,  a  regard  for  duty  as  the  voice 
of  God. 


II 

JONATHAN    EDWARDS 

Mr.  George  Bancroft,  our  historian,  has  written: 
*'  He  that  would  know  the  workings  of  the  New  Eng- 
land mind  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  the  throbbings  of  its  heart,  must  give  his  days  and 
nights  to  the  study  of  Jonathan  Edwards."  And  Pro- 
fessor Allen  of  Cambridge,  the  last  biographer  of  Ed- 
wards, adds  the  comment :  **  He  that  would  under- 
stand the  significance  of  later  New  England  thought, 
must  make  Edwards  the  first  object  of  his  study." 

And  to  these  common  American  estimates,  I  would 
add  the  words  of  Dr.  Fairbaim  of  Oxford,  in  the 
*' Prophets  of  the  Christian  Faith":  **We'are  fain 
to  confess  that  in  this  lone  New  Englander,  preaching 
now  in  Northampton,  whether  amid  the  excitement  of 
the  Great  Revival  or  in  the  face  of  the  coldness  of  an 
estranged  people,  and  now  laboring  in  the  backwoods 
at  Stockbridge,  amid  Indians  and  amid  countrymen 
ruder  than  the  Indians,  we  yet  have  one  who  holds 
his  place  amid  the  most  honorable  of  the  doctors  of  the 
Church,  of  the  philosophers  of  his  century,  and  of  the 
Saints  of  God."  '*  He  is  perhaps  the  only  American 
intellect,"  says  Dr.  George  A.  Gordon,  "  that  deserves 
a  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  world's  great  thinkers.  We 
can  be  sure  that  he  is  among  the  Kings ;  we  cannot  be 
sure  that  another  name  in  our  history  is  there." 

It  is  not  the  purpose  to  speak  of  Edwards  as  a 
thinker;  though  without  question,  it  is  as  a  thinker. 

19 


f 

20  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

by  his  books  on  philosophy  and  theology,  that  he  has 
influenced  men  far  more  than  by  person  and  speech. 
Yet  it  is  the  easier  and  narrower  task  that  I  set  my- 
self, to  speak  of  Edwards  as  a  preacher. 

Three  questions  we  must  ask,  if  we  would  under- 
stand the  work  of  any  preacher ;  they  concern  the  mes- 
^-T^  sage,  the  manner,  the  personality.  What  truth  did  the 
man  speak?  Was  the  word  simply  an  echo  of  other 
voices  —  or  was  it  a  personal  and  peculiar  message  — 
a  prophet's  word  in  adaptation  to  the  need  of  the  gen- 
eration and  in  its  directness  and  reality  from  the  spirit 
of  God?  How  was  it  spoken?  In  the  conventional 
form  and  accent  of  the  time,  or  in  new  channels  of 
power?  And  more  subtly  still  —  what  was  the  per- 
son behind  message  and  speech,  the  peculiar  and  rich 
elements  of  personality  that  transmuted  truth  into 
life? 

I  would  try  to  get  some  idea  of  the  man  first.  He 
was  a  product  of  the  intense,  isolated,  religious  life  of 
New  England.  '*  In  the  attempt  to  understand  him," 
says  Dr.  Fairbaim,  '*  we  have  first  to  realize  the  com- 
parative isolation  in  which  he  lived,  and  therefore  the 
independence  with  which  he  worked.  If  we  put  him 
back  into  his  time  without  recollection  of  his  place, 
no  man  could  seem  less  the  son  of  his  century.  He 
was  born  in  1703,  a  year  before  Locke  died.  In  Eng- 
land, Deism  had  commenced  its  belligerent  and  barren 
career.  Berkeley  had  entered  Trinity  College,  and  was 
jotting  down  in  his  commonplace  book  the  specula- 
tions that  were  later  to  become  a  new  *  Theory  of  Vi- 
sion '  and  furnish  the  *  Principles  of  Human  Knowl- 
edge.' Toland  was  busy  proving  Christianity  not  mys- 
terious, and  arguing  for  a  new  Theism  which  should 
make  God  all  in  all.     Of  those  who  may  be  regarded 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  21 

as  more  strictly  his  contemporaries,  Joseph  Butler  en- 
tered Oriel  College,  Oxford,  just  about  the  time  Ed- 
wards entered  Yale.  David  Hume,  eight  years  his 
senior,  became,  like  Edwards,  a  student  of  Locke,  but, 
unlike  him,  so  interpreted  Locke  as  to  deduce  from 
him  a  system  of  universal  doubt,  which  did  not,  like 
that  of  Descartes,  spare  thought  and  find  through  the 
ego  a  way  into  reasoned  belief.  In  France,  in  the  very 
year  of  Edwards'  birth,  Voltaire  entered,  a  boy  of 
nine,  the  great  Jesuit  school,  the  College  Louis  le 
Grand,  and  began  to  prepare  himself  to  conduct  his 
crusade  —  in  its  essence  more  Christian  than  those  of 
the  middle  ages  —  against  the  tyranny  of  the  unreal 
and  make-believe  in  religion.  While  Edwards  was 
pastor  in  Northampton,  Rousseau  was  indulging  him- 
self in  all  the  luxury  of  sentiment,  and  feeling  his 
way  toward  the  limitation  of  the  individual  and  the 
construction  of  society  through  the  *  Social  Contract.' 
As  Edwards,  diffident  in  secular  things  while  greatly 
daring  in  intellectual,  was  describing  to  the  Corpora- 
tion of  Princeton  his  *  peculiarly  unhappy  constitu- 
tion ...  his  contemptibleness  of  speech,  presence,  and 
demeanor,  much  unfitting  me  for  conversation,  but 
more  especially  for  the  government  of  a  college,'  and 
hesitating  to  accept  the  position  offered  to  him  —  a 
younger  contemporary  in  Germany,  Lessing,  w^as  turn- 
ing his  thoughts  to  the  reform  of  the  theater,  and  to 
a  more  scientific  interpretation  of  religion  and  its  his- 
tory. But  Edwards  in  his  New  England  home  lived 
apart  from  all  these  European  movements  and  influ- 
ences. They  could,  indeed,  hardly  be  said  to  have 
touched  him." 

He   inherited   the   earnest,    analytic,    introspective, 
speculative  mind  of  New  England,    Its  most  thought- 


2,2  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ful  life  came  to  flower  in  his  mind^  When  a  mere  boy 
in  years  the  reading  oi;JLocke's  essay  on  the  under- 
standing revealed  the  bent  of  his  mind  and  started  the 
train  of  philosophic  study  —  carried  on  to  the  day 
of  his  death,  and  shaping  all  his  work  as  preacher 
and  controversialist.  It  is  not  certain  that  he  ever 
studied  the  works  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  but  one  of  his 
college  tutors,  Samuel  Johnson,  was  an  ardent  dis- 
ciple of  Berkeley,  and  Edwards  was  vitally  affected 
by  Idealism.  A  recent  writer  thinks  his  idealism  an 
independent  vision  of  truth.  The  keen,  patient,  pene- 
trative, analytic  mind  would  have  made  notable  addi- 
tions to  science  or  law  had  it  been  devoted  to  such  pur- 
suits. The  outer  world,  as  in  most  young  and  ardent 
souls,  did  make  its  appeal  to  the  boy.  And  his  study 
of  American  spiders,  when  but  twelve  years,  sent  to 
the  Royal  Society  of  Great  Britain,  is  the  first  record 
of  nature-study  in  the  Colonies,  and  the  promise  of 
what  he  might  have  done  had  he  given  himself  to  pure 
science.  But  to  neither  science  nor  philosophy  was 
this  life  born.  His  call  was  not  to  philosophy  but  to 
religious  teaching.  **  To  the  life  of  the  Spirit  he  was 
anointed  from  his  birth."  His  studies  on  the  mind 
^  and  the  nature  of  excellence,  written  when  at  college, 
^'  at  sixteen,  are  perhaps  without  parallel  for  his  years  — 
and  were  essentially  reproduced  at  fifty  in  the  discus- 
^  s'lons  on  the  **  Nature  of  True  Virtue."  But  questions 
of  mind  were  subordinate  to  those  of  the  soul.  Prob- 
lems of  Being  were  God,  and  man's  relation  to  God. 
LSpeculation  was  started  and  governed  for  the  ends  of 
salvation.  God  was  the  good  —  and  the  all  —  Reli- 
gion was  the  end  of  thought  —  the  substance  of  life! 
Edwards  was  a  dedicated  spirit.  Religious  impres- 
sions were  strong  from  the  earliest  years. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  23 

But  the  years  immediately  following  his  graduation 
at  Yale  were  those  of  special  religious  interest  and 
growing  consecration.  He  studied  two  years  with  a 
minister,  as  was  the  custom,  then  had  a  short  service 
in  a  Presbyterian  church  in  New  York,  and  was  called 
back  to  Yale  to  serve  for  three  years  as  a  tutor.  The 
latter  years  were  full  of  unfolding  conceptions  of  truth 
and  deepening  of  feelings. 

The  resolutions  written  before  he  was  nineteen  show 
the  strength  and  sincerity  of  his  religious  nature: 

Resolved,  never  to  do  any  manner  of  thing,  whether  in 
soul  or  body,  less  or  more,  but  what  tends  to  the  glory  of 
God,  nor  be  nor  suffer  it,  if  I  can  possibly  avoid  it. 

Resolved,  to  live  with  all  my  might,  while  I  do  live. 

Resolved,  never  to  do  anything  which  I  should  be 
afraid  to  do  if  it  were  the  last  hour  of  my  life. 

Resolved,  never  to  count  that  a  prayer  nor  to  let  that 
pass  as  a  prayer,  nor  that  as  a  petition  of  a  prayer,  which 
is  so  made  that  I  cannot  hope  that  God  will  answer  it. 

The  boy  here  was  father  to  the  man.  The  spirit  of 
loftly  resolve  characterized  his  entire  life.^  When  he 
took  charge  of  the  church  at  Northampton  at  twenty- 
five,  he  did  so  as  a  student  who  would  not  let  his  life  be 
frittered  away  in  useless  employments.  The  preacher 
was  the  messenger,  and  the  strength  of  life  must  be 
devoted  to  getting  and  giving  the  message.  He  sought 
first  of  all  a  better  knowledge  of  the  Bible.  He  made 
few  visits,  feeling  that  they  were  too  often  but  the 
gratification  of  social  nature.  He  gave  thirteen  hours 
a  day  to  hard  study.  His  life  was  one  of  simplicity, 
discipline,  toil  —  devotion  to  the  highest  things. 

There  was  little  or  no  recreation.  He  had  a  gracious 
and  gifted  wife.     One  of  the  most  quaint  and  beauti- 


24  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

f  ul  letters  —  it  might  be  called  a  love-letter  —  was  the 
one  written  to  the  young  girl  who  afterward  shared 
his  desires  and  his  toils.  The  wife  in  both  mental  and 
spiritual  gifts  was  a  fit  companion  for  the  husband. 
Children  were  born  to  them.  There  must  have  been 
play  and  laughter,  and  the  sweet  joys  and  sports  of 
childhood.  But  little  of  this  breaks  in  upon  the  pre- 
vailing seriousness  of  life.  He  knows  nothing  of 
recreation,  accountable  no  doubt  for  his  own  descrip- 
tion of  his  later  constitution  — "  attended  with  vapid 
and  scarce  fluids  and  a  low  tide  of  spirits."  Towards 
the  end  of  his  life  he  happened  upon  a  novel  that  in 
some  mysterious  way  had  found  entrance  into  his 
house,  the  "  Clarissa  "  of  Richardson,  and  he  got  such 
delight  out  of  it,  such  rest  for  his  mind  overtaxed  in 
a  single  and  fixed  direction  of  thought,  such  food  for 
the  human  sympathies,  starved  a  little  by  concentra- 
tion upon  the  absolute  and  etherial  goodness,  that  he 
confesses  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  in  not  knowing 
more  of  the  joys  of  imagination  in  poetry  and  fiction, 
and  the  rest  and  renewal  of  nature. 

Lyman  Beecher,  a  true  successor  of  Edwards  in  na- 
ture and  doctrine  and  work,  kept  the  balance  of  life 
and  preserved  his  youthful  sympathy  and  spirit  by 
his  fondness  for  rod  and  gun,  and  by  the  frolics  and 
discussions  with  his  eager  crew  of  boys.  Edwards 
was  essentially  an  ascetic  —  not  the  sour  and  repellent 
kind  —  but  the  truer  and  nobler  type  —  by  the  domi- 
nance of  his  moral  earnestness.  His  denial  was  not 
for  merit,  with  little  morbid  self-consciousness,  but  for 
work;  the  discipline  of  his  own  life  and  that  of  his 
household  for  the  higher  purpose  that  he  felt  to  be 
for  the  glory  of  God. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  25 

But  the  most  beautiful  and  dominant  trait  of  Ed- 
wards' character  was  his  passion  for  the  divine.  He 
might  be  called,  as  Maurice  was,  "  a  God-possessed 
man."  He  was  an  Idealist  and  a  Mystic.  God  was 
all.  The  external  world  was  the  expression  of  God 
in  finite  modes.  The  human  soul  was  God  working  f^ 
in  the  sphere  of  mind.  **  He  was  penetrated  with  the 
mystic's  conviction  of  some  far-reaching,  deep-seated  ^ 
alienation  which  separates  man  from  God  " —  and  also 
of  the  immediate  communication  to  men  of  spiritual 
light  and  life.  One  of  his  first  published  sermons 
(1734)  was  from  the  words  of  Christ  to  Peter: 
**  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Barjona;  for  flesh  and  blood 
hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  my  Father  which  is 
in  heaven."  And  his  doctrine  — *'  A  divine  and  super- 
natural light  immediately  imparted  to  the  soul,  shown 
to  be  both  a  Scriptural  and  Rational  doctrine."  The 
modern  verse  voices  his  spirit  exactly: 

Beyond  the  sacred  page 
I  seek  Thee,  Lord :  — 
My  spirit  pants  for  Thee, 
O  Living  Word. 

We  read  in  his  Diary  in  the  early  years  of  his  min- 
istry :  **  Once  as  I  rode  out  into  the  woods  for  my 
health,  in  1737,  having  alighted  from  my  horse  in  a 
retired  place,  as  my  manner  commonly  has  been  to 
walk  for  Divine  contemplation  and  prayer,  I  had  a 
view  that  for  me  was  extraordinary,  of  the  glory  of 
the  Son  of  God,  as  mediator  between  God  and  man, 
and  his  wonderful,  great,  full,  pure,  and  sweet  grace 
and  love,  and  meek  and  gentle  condescension.  This 
grace  that  appeared  so  calm  and  sweet,  appeared  also 


26  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

great  above  the  heavens.  The  Person  of  Christ  ap- 
peared ineffably  excellent  with  an  excellency  great 
enough  to  swallow  up  all  thought  and  conception  — 
which  continued,  as  near  as  I  can  judge,  about  an 
hour;  which  kept  one  the  greater  part  of  the  time  in 
a  flood  of  tears,  and  weeping  aloud.  I  felt  an  ardency 
of  soul  to  be,  what  I  knew  not  otherwise  how  to  ex- 
press, emptied  and  annihilated;  to  lie  in  the  dust,  and 
to  be  full  of  Christ  alone;  to  love  him  with  a  holy 
and  pure  love;  to  trust  in  him;  to  live  upon  him;  to 
serve  and  follow  him;  and  to  be  perfectly  sanctified 
and  made  pure,  with  a  divine  and  heavenly  purity.  I 
have  had  several  other  times  very  much  of  the  same 
nature,  and  which  have  had  the  same  effects." 

A  nature  intense  and  spiritual,  a  mind  speculative 
and  rational,  a  faith  pure  and  elevated  —  and  you  have 
the  rare  and  noble  personality.  It  is  this  that  must 
ever  be  held  in  thought  as  the  all  pervasive  and  effective 
force  in  considering  his  influence  as  a  preacher. 

The  person  of  Edwards  expressed  the  lofty  soul 
within.  Tall  and  slender  —  of  grave  and  gracious 
manner,  his  face  with  something  of  the  feminine  cast 
—  but  without  weakness;  a  face  speaking  of  a  deli- 
cate and  nervous  organization,  implying  at  once  ca- 
pacity for  both  sweetness  and  severity,  he  had  the 
presence  and  the  spirit  that  we  associate  with  St. 
John. 

Put  a  man  so  dowered  by  nature,  and  so  under  spir- 
itual forces,  into  a  Puritan  community  like  Northamp- 
ton at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
the  religious  movement  termed  the  **  Great  Awaken- 
ing "  seems  the  natural  result.  It  does  not  lessen  the 
fact  that  the  Spirit  of  God  touched  men,  to  keep  be- 
fore us  the  natural  conditions  for  His  working. 


if 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  27 

What  was  the  message  of  Edwards'  sermons?    The 
truths  of  the  older  Calvinism  —  shaped  by  his  ideal-    \ 
ism  and  made  vivid  by  the  intensity  and  reality  of  his 
spiritual  conceptions. 

He  has  been  called  a  monotheistic  idealist,  with  the 
emphasis  upon  the  mono.  ''  In  a  sense  there  is  noth- 
ing but  mind  and  its  ideas  —  those  of  man  being  ef- 
fects from  those  of  God."  Nature  is  thus  the  con- 
tinuous creation  of  God. 

His  philosophy  governed  his  theology  and  shaped 
his  preaching.  *'  God  is  and  there  is  none  else." 
"  Creation  is  the  disposition  of  God  to  communicate 
himself,  to  diffuse  His  own  fullness."  "  Religion  is 
imitation  of  God."  "Virtue  is  love  to  the  greatest 
happiness,  or  governed  by  the  very  end  for  which  God  | 
made  the  world.     True  virtue  is  love  for  God." 

His  sense  of  the  dreadfulness  of  sin  increased  with 
his  vision  of  the  fullness  and  perfection  of  God.  The 
fall  had  wrought  catastrophe  in  human  life.  It  had 
made  a  gulf  between  God  and  Man. 

In  his  representations  of  the  nature  of  God,  he 
seems  to  take  the  opposite  pole  from  modern  thought, 
viz.,  the  Divine  distinct  and  different  from  anything 
human.  **  The  human  and  the  divine  have  nothing  in 
common."  He  makes  nothing  of  the  objection  that 
all  the  attributes  of  God's  holiness,  as  justice,  love  — 
are  seen  to  belong  to  the  nature  of  man,  at  least  in 
germ.  Here  is  the  distinct  advance  of  modem  theol- 
ogy. '*  All  religious  philosophy  will  admit  that  in 
God  there  is  the  Eternal  Prototype  of  humanity.  All 
religious  thinking  must  recognize  in  the  Deity  an 
Eternal  basis  for  the  nature,  the  advent,  the  career  and 
ideal  of  humanity.  What  possible  interest  can  hu- 
man beings  have  in  the  Infinite,  if  society  is  not  organ- 


28  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ized  out  of  His  life,  if  He  is  not  the  ground  of  its 
order  and  hope  ?  "  ^ 

This  of  course  affected  Edwards'  view  of  man's 
nature,  his  doctrine  of  sin  and  regeneration.  As  there 
was  nothing  in  human  nature  since  the  Fall  that  had 
anything  in  common  with  the  divine  nature,  human 
nature  was  totally  sinful.  He  drew  a  sharp  distinc- 
tion between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual.  All  the 
moralities  of  common  life  —  its  duties,  its  loves,  its 
delights  —  were  only  natural,  they  were  without  God, 
cut  off  from  the  operations  of  his  spirit.  At  times 
he  teaches  that  the  common  operations  of  the  Spirit 
may  affect  men  in  the  family  and  in  society  —  but  there 
is  no  divine  life  in  them.  And  so  he  portrayed  as  never 
before  or  since  the  evil  of  the  human  heart,  pursuing 
with  his  persistent  logic  the  sin  into  every  motive  and 
action  of  life.  His  view  of  total  depravity  is  the  pic- 
ture of  life  as  he  conceived  it,  totally  without  God's 
influence.  He  says  of  children :  **  As  innocent  as 
young  children  seem  to  be  to  us,  yet  if  they  are  out  of 
Christ,  they  are  not  so  in  God's  light,  but  are  young 
vipers,  and  infinitely  more  hateful  than  vipers,  and  are 
in  a  most  miserable  condition  as  well  as  grown  per- 
sons." 

Such  a  doctrine  is  wrought  out  in  the  study  —  let- 
ting his  logic  work  with  the  exactness  of  mathematical 
processes  —  but  is  not  the  conclusion  from  his  study  of 
the  scriptures  and  human  life.  Let  a  life  be  without 
a  particle  of  divine  influence  —  with  absolute  separa- 
tion, alienation  from  God  —  and  the  result  would  be 
the  picture  of  Edwards.  But  such  a  picture  is  an  ab- 
straction of  his  own  brain.     Such  is  not  life.     No  life 

1  Gordon,  Geo.  A.,  "The  Christ  of  To-day,"  p.  115. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  '  2g 

is  absolutely  without  the  influences  of  the  Spirit. 
God's  spirit  is  as  real  and  present  and  universal  as 
man's  sin.  And  all  men  are  the  children  of  God, 
however  much  they  have  wandered  from  the  Father's 
house  and  life.  *'  Nothing  could  be  sublimer  than  Ed- 
wards' conception  of  God  at  his  best;  nothing  could 
be  more  incredible  than  the  treatment  to  which  he  sub- 
jects the  race  under  God.  His  theology  is  living,  pow- 
erful ;  it  is  bound  to  become  in  the  new  century  a  pro- 
founder  influence ;  his  anthropology  has  become  a  my- 
thology." ^ 

Edwards  made  prominent  in  the  teaching  of  the  pul- 
pit the  Doctrine  of  Regeneration.  "  That  there  is  an 
absolute  and  universal  dependence  of  the  redeemed  on 
God  for  all  their  good  "  he  taught  in  the  first  printed 
sermons  (1731).  In  regeneration  something  was  im- 
parted absolutely  different  from  the  sinful  or  natural 
life.  And  this  new  life  was  to  be  imparted  by  the  will 
of  God.  He  rejected  the  natural,  instinctive  working 
of  the  conscience  against  the  absolute  sovereignty  of 
God,  as  an  evil  to  be  overcome,  and  he  brought  himself 
to  receive  sovereignty  as  the  chief  fact.  His  theory 
of  the  will  —  hailed  by  Hume  and  others  of  the  em- 
pirical school  as  a  doctrine  of  necessity  and  so  essen- 
tially anti-Christian  —  turned  the  thought  to  sov- 
ereignty and  regeneration  rather  than  repentance  and 
faith.  One  is  free  only  to  follow  disposition.  The  dis- 
position towards  holiness  is  the  direct  impartation  of 
the  Spirit.  "  An  inclination  is  nothing  but  God's  influ- 
encing the  soul  according  to  a  certain  law  of  nature." 
And  so  Edwards  preached  the  holiness  of  God,  the 
divine  excellence  of  Christ,  the  nature  of  true  affec- 

1  Edwards,  "  Retrospect,"  p.  65. 


30  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

tion,  the  awful  state  of  the  sinner,  and  the  majority 
of  his  hearers  who  were  led  to  faith  passed  through 
long  and  agonizing  periods  of  self-examination  —  al- 
ternations of  hope  and  fear  —  before  they  felt  the  as- 
surance and  joy  of  the  new  life.  Even  tragic  expe- 
riences attended  his  preaching  —  souls  waiting  for  the 
heavenly  change,  and  left  hopeless  in  growing  dark- 
ness of  the  mind. 
y^y  In  contrast  to  this  moral  inability,  this  helpless  de- 
x«^pendence  upon  the  sovereignty  of  God,  contrast  the 
modem  appeal  to  will.  I  take  a  paragraph  from  Dr. 
Taylor's  Paul  the  Missionary — Paul  before  Agrippa: 
"  The  will  is  the  rudder  of  the  soul,  and  tumeth  it 
whithersoever  it  listeth ;  and  when  that  will  chooses  to 
give  in  and  give  up  to  Christ,  the  man  becomes  a 
Christian.  Thus,  in  a  very  solemn  sense,  God  has 
placed  our  everlasting  destiny  in  our  own  choice.  If 
we  receive  life  from  Christ,  it  is  because  we  will 
to  come  to  him;  and  if  we  die  eternally,  it  is  be- 
cause we  will  to  die.  No  man  becomes  a  Christian 
against  his  will ;  it  is  by  willing  to  be  so  that  he  becomes 
a  Christian,  and  it  is  over  this  willing  that  the  whole 
battle  of  conversion  has  to  be  fought.  There  is  no  one 
here  who  may  not  be  saved,  if  he  will." 

In  the  first  year  of  his  ministry  Edwards  wrote  his 
sermons  and  read  them.  In  later  years  he  often 
preached  without  writing.  He  was  quiet  in  his  man- 
ner, making  few  gestures,  his  voice  never  loud,  marked 
by  little  physical  earnestness,  but  with  a  penetration 
and  spiritual  intensity  that  carried  his  truth  to  the 
innermost  being  and  lighted  up  the  most  hidden  re- 
cesses of  motive  and  affection.  This  quiet,  philo- 
sophic preacher  had  greater  mastery  over  his  audiences 
than  Whitefield.     The  body  itself  sympathized  with  the 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  3^ 

writhings  of  the  spirit.  And  at  times  hell  seemed 
yawning  under  their  feet,  and  men  rose  and  laid  hold 
of  the  pillars  of  the  church  for  fear  their  feet  should 
slide  into  the  place  of  torment. 

"  It  was  his  manner  also  which  helped  to  make  him 
what  he  is  confessed  to  have  been,  the  greatest  preacher  ■ 
of  his  age.     His  gift  was  individual,  original;  he  was  k 
neither  made  nor  spoiled  by  the  schools.     He  was  in-  ^\ 
imitable,  his  power  was  never  described.     He  was  no  1 
glowing  orator.     He  spoke  quietly  and  with  little  ges- 
ture, but  as  one  who  knew.     His  eyes  were  seeing  \ 
things  of  which  he  talked,  and  not  the  people  to  whom  ' 
he  spoke.     He  was  calm  and  pale,  he  had  the  form  of 
an  ascetic ;  rapt  and  serious  in  look,  it  was  his  habit 
to  lean  upon  the  pulpit  with  marvelous  eyes  alight,  a 
face  illuminate   from   within,   earnest,   confident,   au- 
thoritative,  with   nothing  in   his   vesture   or   manner  \ 
priestly  except  that  his  heart  was  touched  with  the  ] 
feeling  of  our  infirmities."  ^ 

The  style  on  the  whole  is  plain,  marked  by  few  beau- 
ties, making  its  appeal  directly  to  reason  and  con- 
science, through  the  arguments  from  scripture  and  ex- 
perience. Here  is  an  example  of  the  plain,  practical 
preaching  that  follows  the  keen  analysis  of  the  scrip- 
ture and  the  doctrine  derived  from  it.  It  is  from  a 
sermon  on  Joseph's  Temptation  and  Deliverance.  One 
of  the  inferences  is  **  We  may  in  many  things  deter- 
mine whether  any  custom  be  of  a  good  tendency  by' 
considering  what  the  effect  would  be  if  it  was  openly 
and  universally  owned  and  practiced."  And  then  he 
applies  the  principle  to  frolics  (probably  country 
balls) : 

1  Edwards,  p.  103. 


32  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

I  desire  our  young  people  to  suffer  their  ears  to  be 
opened  to  what  I  have  to  say  on  this  point,  as  I  am  the 
messenger  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  to  them,  and  not  deter- 
mine that  they  will  not  harken,  before  they  have  heard 
what  I  shall  say.  Try  this  custom  by  these  rules,  and 
see  whether  it  will  bear  the  test  or  not.  Two  things  will 
be  found: 

I.  Where  there  is  most  of  this  carried  on  among  young 
people,  it  will  be  found  that  the  young  people  are  com- 
monly a  loose,  vain  and  irreligious  generation;  little  re- 
garding   God,    heaven    or   hell    or    anything   but    vanity. 
And  that  community  in  those  town  where  most  frolick- 
ing is  carried  on,  there  are  the  most  frequent  breaking 
^    ^out  of  gross  sins;  fornication  in  particular. 
f\^/^     2.  They  are  the  persons  furthest  from  serious  thought, 
^  and  are  the  vainest  and  loosest  on  other  accounts.     And 

whence  should  this  be,  if  such  a  practice  was  not  sinful, 
or  had  not  a  natural  tendency  to  lead  persons  into  sin? 


® 


And  so  he  goes  on.  He  has  used  his  powers  of  intel- 
lect to  build  up  a  massive  doctrine  and  then  he  uses 
inference  after  inference  to  pursue  the  soul,  to  hunt 
out  and  condemn  the  particular  practice  that  he  feels 
V^  is  hostile  to  the  eternal  welfare  of  the  soul.  It  is  a 
fair  example  of  the  practical  spirit  of  his  sermons. 

One  is  impressed  perhaps  most  of  all  in  reading  the 
sermons  with  Edwards'  sense  of  the  dreadfulness  of 
sin  and  his  portrayal  of  the  terrible  reality  of  it. 
Whatever  be  the  text  or  doctrine,  you  will  find  some 
vivid  picture  of  sin.  Here  is  one  from  the  sermon  on 
the  **  Free  Christian  Life."  He  has  been  describing 
the  heavenward  journey,  and  then  he  places  another 
picture  beside  it  by  way  of  sharp  contrast : 

Some  men  spend  their  whole  lives,  from  their  infancy 
to  their  dying  days,  in  going  down  the  broad  way  to  de- 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  33 

struction.  While  others  press  forward  in  the  straight  ^ 
and  narrow  way  to  life,  and  laboriously  travel  up  the  n 
hill  towards  Zion  against  the  inclinations  and  tendency  u 
of  the  flesh;  these  run  with  a  swift  career  down  towards  | 
the  valley  of  eternal  death;  towards  the  lake  of  fire;  to- 
wards  the  bottomless  pit. 

A  wicked  man  is  a  servant  of  sin;  his  powers  and  fac- 
ulties are  all  employed  in  the  service  of  sin,  and  in  fitting 
for  hell. 

Thus  do  all  unclean  persons,  that  live  in  lascivious 
practices  in  secret.  Thus  do  all  malicious  persons.  Thus 
do  all  profane  persons,  that  neglect  duties  of  religion. 
Thus  do  all  unjust  persons;  and  those  that  are  fraudu- 
lent and  oppressive  in  their  dealings.  Thus  do  all  back- 
biters and  revilers.  Thus  do  all  covetous  persons,  that 
set  their  hearts  chiefly  on  the  riches  of  the  world.  Thus 
do  far  the  greater  part  of  men;  the  bulk  of  mankind  are 
hasting  onward  in  the  broad  way  of  destruction. 

In  many  of  the  sermons  —  nearly  all  that  I  have 
read  —  the  appeal  is  made  boldly  and  terribly  to  the 
sense  of  fear.  There  is  little  appeal  to  the  higher  ele- 
ments —  too  little  showing  of  the  '*  winsom  and  per- 
fect form  of  goodness."  In  a  single  volume  are 
**  God's  Enemies/'  "  The  Damnation  of  Sinners," 
"  The  Punishment  of  the  Wicked,"  "  Eternity  of  Hell 
Torments,"  and  "  Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry 
God": 

We  can  conceive  but  little  of  the  matter  (he  says)  — 
one  cannot  conceive  what  that  sinking  of  the  soul  in 
such  a  case  is.  But  to  help  your  conception,  imagine 
yourself  to  be  cast  into  a  fiery  oven,  all  of  a  glowing 
heat,  or  into  the  midst  of  a  glowing  brick-kiln,  or  of  a 
great  furnace,  where  your  pain  would  be  as  much  greater 
than  that  occasioned  by  accidentally  touching  a  coal  of 
fire,  as  the  heat  is  greater.    Imagine  also  that  your  body 


34  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

were  to  lie  there  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  full  of  fire, 
as  full  within  and  without  as  a  bright  coal  of  fire,  all 
the  while  full  of  quick  sense;  what  horror  would  you 
feel  at  the  entrance  of  such  a  furnace !  And  how  long 
would  that  quarter  of  an  hour  seem  to  you !  If  it  were 
to  be  measured  by  a  glass,  how  long  would  the  glass  seem 
to  be  running!  And  after  you  had  endured  it  for 
one  minute,  think  how  overbearing  would  it  be  to  you 
to  think  that  you  had  it  to  endure  the  other  four- 
teen ! 

And  he  goes  on  increasing  the  minutes  to  hours,  and 
the  hours  to  years,  and  to  millions  of  years,  and  with 
each  addition  the  horror  grows.  But  why  go  on? 
One  example  is  enough.  Such  realism  of  hell  has 
never  been  portrayed  outside  of  Dante  and  Dore.  In 
fact,  Edwards  is  the  very  Dore  of  the  pulpit  in  his 
minute,  realistic,  materialistic  portrayal  of  suffering. 
Human  nature  cannot  endure  it.  It  must  cry  out.  A 
minister  who  heard  the  sermon  on  '*  Sinners  in  the 
Hands  of  an  Angry  God'*  plucked  Edwards  by  the 
tails  of  his  coat,  crying  out  in  his  agony,  '*  Oh !  Mr. 
Edwards,  is  not  God  a  God  of  mercy  ?  " 

But  we  shall  get  a  partial  and  wrong  view  of  these 
sermons  if  we  think  of  them  chiefly  for  their  notes  of 
warning.  There  are  transcendental  views  of  love  in 
them,  and  the  sense  of  beauty  and  the  poetic  elements 
of  imagination  and  feeling.  There  is  a  mind  like 
Wordsworth  in  some  of  his  observations : 

The  Son  of  Man  creates  the  world  for  this  very  end, 
to  communicate  himself  in  an  image  of  His  own  excel- 
lency.  He  communicates  himself  properly  only  to  spirits, 
^  and  they  only  are  capable  of  being  proper  images  of  His 
excellency,  for  they  only  are  properly  beings.  Yet  he 
communicates  a  sort  of  shadow  or  glimpse  of  His  ex- 


I 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  35 

cellencies  to  bodies  which,  as  we  have  shown,  are  but 
the  shadows  of  beings  and  not  real  beings. 

So  that,  when  we  are  delighted  with  flowery  meadows 
and  gentle  breezes  of  wind,  we  may  consider  that  we 
see  only  emanations  of  the  sweet  benevolence  of  Jesus 
Christ.  When  we  behold  the  fragrant  rose  and  lily,  we 
see  His  love  and  purity.  So  the  green  trees  and  fields, 
and  singing  birds  are  the  emanations  of  His  infinite  joy 
and  benignity.  The  crystal  rivers  and  murmuring 
streams  are  the  footsteps  of  His  favor,  grace  and  beauty. 
That  beauteous  light  with  which  the  world  is  filled  in  a 
clear  day  is  a  lively  shadow  of  His  spotless  holiness,  and 
happiness  and  delight  in  communicating  himself. 

When  we  think  that  love  of  nature  had  not  yet  found 
voice  in  Thomson,  and  Gray,  and  Burns,  and  Words- 
worth, we  must  recognize  the  trueness  and  tenderness 
of  this  Puritan  soul  amid  the  shadows  of  sin  and  suf- 
fering. This  seems  a  companion  to  the  Crusaders' 
Hymn  from  the  German  of  the  sixteenth  century: 

Fairest  Lord  Jesus, 

Ruler  of  all  nature, 

O  Thou  of  God  and  Man  the  Son; 

Thee  will  I  cherish. 

Thee  will  I  honor. 

Thou,  my  souFs  glory,  joy,  and  crown. 

Fair  are  the  meadows. 

Fairer  still  the  woodlands, 

Robed  in  the  blooming  garb  of  Spring; 

Jesus  is  fairer, 

Jesus  is  purer. 

Who  makes  the  woeful  heart  to  sing. 

Fair  is  the  sunshine. 
Fairer  still  the  moonlight, 


36  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

And  all  the  twinkling,  starry  host; 

Jjesus  shines  brighter, 

Jesus  shines  purer. 

Than  all  the  angels  heaven  can  boast. 

Twenty-five  years  at  Northampton,  ten  years  at 
Stockbridge,  preaching  to  Indians  and  frontiersmen, 
and  sending  books  and  sermons  to  the  press,  and  a 
few  months  as  President  of  Princeton  College,  makes 
the  outline  of  his  life.  There  is  no  sadder  chapter 
in  the  annals  of  the  American  pulpit  than  his  expe- 
rience at  Northampton.  After  years  of  devoted  serv- 
ice —  and  religious  awakenings  from  his  preaching 
that  stirred  the  entire  community  and  the  colonies  — 
the  people  turning  against  him,  and  in  bitterness  driv- 
ing him  from  his  pulpit.  But  according  to  the  old 
story,  the  children  have  built  the  sepulcher  of  the 
prophet  —  the  name  of  Edwards  resting  on  the  chief 
church  of  Northampton,  and  the  name  the  special 
honor  of  the  town. 

The  preaching  of  Edwards  banished  the  sacramental 
tendency  from  the  Puritan  Church,  though  he  lost  his 
own  church  by  it.  The  line  had  gradually  been  less- 
ened between  church  members  and  the  congregation. 
Baptism  was  administered  to  all  and  all  urged  to  come 
to  the  Lord's  Table,  often  considering  it  as  a  saving 
ordinance.  But  Edwards'  sharp  distinction  between 
the  common  and  special  influences  of  the  spirit,  be- 
.tween  the  natural  and  spiritual  life,  and  his  bringing 
into  prominence  the  doctrine  of  regeneration  led  anew 
to  the  spiritual  conception  of  the  Christian  life. 

Edwards'  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  (a  free- 
dom only  in  name)  became  a  bridge  to  modern  Cal- 
vinism in  which  freedom  implies  choice  of  motives. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  37 

He  preached  so  that  men  were  profoundly  moved. 
He  defended  the  preaching  which  appeals  to  the  affec- 
tions. **  What  the  people  need  is  not  to  have  their-;  % 
heads  stored,  so  much  as  to  have  their  hearts  touched." 
And  there  is  a  close  connection  between  this  appeal  to 
emotions  —  the  revival  fervor  that  swept  the  colonies 
—  and  the  beginnings  of  the  sentiments  of  humanity, 
breaking  the  coldness,  and  cruelty  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  finding  expression  in  efforts  to  reach  the 
heathen  and  to  free  the  slave.  The  philanthropies  and 
social  struggles  that  have  made  our  century  bright  with 
promise  got  something  of  their  inspiration  from  the 
work  of  Edwards.  "  Edwards  stood  like  Dante  at 
the  beginning  of  a  new  age  and  at  the  dividing  of  the 
waters,  after  the  long  regime  of  Puritanism  in  the 
English-speaking  world.  He  too  was  the  precursor 
of  a  great  humanitarian  movement  which  went  on 
accumulating  in  power  till  it  became  the  controlling 
force  in  the  nineteenth  century,  manifesting  itself  in 
literature,  in  art,  in  science,  and  political  economy,  till 
it  culminated  in  the  sociological  movements  of  the  age 
in  which  we  live."  ^ 

No  doubt  his  printed  word  has  had  far  more  influ- 
ence than  the  spoken  sermons.  In  his  bold  search 
for  truth,  in  his  trust  to  the  processes  of  an  enlight- 
ened reason,  in  his  effort  to  find  the  reasonableness  of 
truth,  he  marks  an  era  in  Christian  thought.  He  is 
father  of  those  who  have  sought  for  deeper  realities. 
In  some  of  his  later  works,  and  the  unpublished  MSS. 
**  he  anticipated  many  of  the  best  conceptions  in  later 
discussions  —  the  affinity  of  the  two  natures  as  a  pre- 
supposition of  personal   union,  the  genuineness   and 

1  Edwards,  p.  9. 


38  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

value  of  our  Lord's  humanity,  and  his  eternal  media- 
tion." 

In  spite  of  the  scholasticism  of  much  of  his  teach- 
ing, and  the  severity  of  some  of  his  accents,  he  is  a 
man  with  his  face  to  the  future,  a  prophet  of  the  later 
day.  **  His  spiritual  philosophy,  his  sense  of  God,  the 
light  and  radiance  of  his  pure  and  lofty  character,  the 
penetrativeness  of  his  insight  into  the  unity  of  the 
cosmos  .  .  .  will  attract  and  enlighten  and  quicken. 
We  shall  not  go  back  to  him,  nor  yet  go  forward  with- 
out him." 

In  this  far  too  brief  and  superficial  study  of  the  ser- 
mons of  Jonathan  Edwards,  two  truths  or  lessons  have 
taken  shape  with  growing  clearness.  It  would  be  well 
if  we  could  get  something  of  his  realization  of  God's 
presence,  his  *' practice  of  the  presence  of  Goda"  to 
use  the  phrase  of  Father  Lawrence.  God  spoke  to 
him,  and  all  that  he  saw  and  did  had  direct  and  vital 
relation  with  God.  Call  it  mysticism  if  you  will,  all 
the  great  souls  from  Paul  to  Phillips  Brooks  have  had 
this  God-consciousness.  It  has  given  elevation  to  their 
life  and  authority  to  their  word. 

Then  I  think  it  would  be  well  if  we  had  a  profounder 
sense  of  sin.  It  is  often  hard  for  us  to  think  of  men 
as  lost.  The  refinements  of  our  life  and  thought,  the 
spiritualizing  of  our  conceptions  of  reward,  of  heaven 
and  hell,  have  no  doubt  dimmed  the  sharpness  of  pen- 
alty, and  taken  from  many  eyes  the  horror  of  sin.  We 
cannot  frighten  men  into  the  noblest  life.  The  tran- 
scendent view  of  love  which  Edwards  taught,  in  con- 
trast to  the  narrow  selfishness  of  early  New  England, 
leads  us  to  this  lesson.  But  men  ought  to  fear  sin, 
and  an  outraged  goodness.  Goodness  is  not  an  easy 
indifference;  it  is  moral  order,  and  sin  —  the  least  you 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS  39 

can  think  of  —  is  moral  disorder.  We  must  not  for- 
get the  wrath  of  the  lamb.  One  of  the  truths  recov- 
ered, like  the  writing  of  an  old  palimpsest,  by  the  sharp 
chemicals  of  war,  is  the  dreadfulness  of  sin  and  the 
helplessness  of  men  left  to  natural  law. 

While  I  would  try  to  realize  the  fact  of  God  and  the 
guilt  of  sin,  I  am  grateful  that  men  have  followed  out 
the  suggestions  of  Edwards'  thinking,  and  that  God 
is  in  His  world,  everywhere  for  its  good ;  that  He  is  in 
Christ  redeeming  the  world  to  Himself ;  that  the  whole 
race  is  lighted  with  the  dawn  of  a  new  day;  that  no 
soul  is  lost  save  by  the  willful  rejection  of  light. 

For  the  love  of  God  is  broader 
Than  the  measures  of  man's  mind. 
And  the  heart  of  the  eternal 
Is  most  wonderfully  kind: 
But  we  make  His  love  too  narrow 
By  false  limits  of  our  own, 
And  we  magnify  His  strictness 
With  a  zeal  He  will  not  own. 


Ill 

LYMAN   BEECHER 

The  story  of  Lyman  Beecher  has  a  three-fold  value. 
We  see  in  him  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Probably  more  than  any  other  minister,  and  quite  as 
much  as  any  public  man  like  Webster,  he  made  a  large 
part  of  the  life  of  his  time.  ( i )  His  own  varied  ex- 
perience mirrors  the  social  life  in  our  first  national 
period.  (2)  His  lectures  and  articles,  and  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  his  sermons,  express  the  earnest  and  some- 
times fierce  religious  and  theological  controversies  that 
marked  the  American  churches.  (3)  And  no  other 
preacher  so  fully  illustrates,  I  think,  the  place  and  in- 
fluence of  the  pulpit  in  the  development  of  the  higher 
life  of  America.  Of  these  three  things  I  shall  first 
speak,  and  then  attempt  a  portrait  of  the  man  and  the 
preacher. 

I 

The  Social  Life  of  His  Time 

When  Lyman  Beecher  was  settled  in  his  first  church 
at  East  Hampton  —  the  eastern  end  of  Long  Island  — 
the  life  of  the  people  was  very  simple  and  primitive. 
There  was  more  respect  for  position  than  now,  but  no 
barrier  between  groups  of  people.  The  standing  order, 
as  it  was  called,  still  held  in  his  native  State,  Con- 
necticut.    The  Congregational  Church  was  the  State 

40 


LYMAN  BEECHER  4I 

Church,  its  ministry  supported  by  public  taxes.  The 
minister  was  socially  the  first  person  of  the  town,  and 
in  all  occasions  and  functions  where  a  particular  order 
was  designated  the  minister  was  placed  first.  And  yet 
the  Church  and  Society  were  thoroughly  democratic 
in  the  sense  that  each  one  had  equality  of  opportunity. 
The  way  was  free  for  every  one  to  make  the  most  of 
native  gifts.  Lyman  Beecher  was  the  son  of  a  New 
Haven  blacksmith  and  he  had  his  boyhood  and  youth 
on  an  uncle's  farm  near  Windsor.  And  he  had  as 
good  training  and  his  social  opportunity  was  not  less 
than  the  most  favored  of  the  land.  Whatever  the 
calling,  for  every  one  there  was  much  hand  toil.  The 
minister  was  often  a  farmer  and  kept  his  body  sound 
by  hard  outdoor  work  and  touched  men  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  work.  Lyman  Beecher  got  his  exercise  and 
living  too  out  of  the  soil,  at  East  Hampton  and  later 
at  Litchfield.  At  Cincinnati  as  pastor  and  President 
of  Lane  Seminary  he  cut  his  garden  out  of  the  forests 
of  Walnut  Hills,  and  became  as  skilled  in  using  his 
ax  against  the  tall  trees  as  Gladstone  later  became. 
At  Boston  he  used  to  saw  his  own  wood,  and  his  saw 
hung  on  the  walls  of  his  study,  which  he  was  as  care- 
ful to  sharpen  as  the  points  of  his  sermons.  When 
he  had  finished  his  own  pile,  he  would  take  his  saw  to 
a  neighbor's  wood  pile  and  win  men  as  he  worked. 

The  picture  of  his  first  parish.  East  Hampton,  is  a 
good  example  of  the  simple  life  in  his  time.  It  was 
the  last  year  of  the  eighteenth  century.  "  The  town 
consisted  of  the  plainest  farm  houses,  standing  directly 
on  the  street,  with  the  wood  pile  by  the  front  door, 
and  the  barn  close  by,  also  standing  on  the  street. 
There  was  so  little  traveling  that  the  road  consisted 
of  two   ruts  worn  through  the  green  turf   for  the 


42  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

wheels,  and  two  narrow  paths  for  the  horses.  The 
wide  green  street  was  usually  covered  with  flocks  of 
white  geese.  On  Sundays  all  the  families  from  the 
villages  about  came  riding  to  meeting  in  great  two- 
horse  uncovered  wagons.  It  is  probable  that  more 
than  half  the  people  of  those  retired  villages  made  no 
other  journey  during  their  whole  lives." 

That  was  before  the  days  of  either  the  steamship 
or  the  railway.  His  few  household  goods  were  car- 
ried across  from  New  Haven  in  a  sloop.  When  he 
presented  the  call  of  his  church  to  Presbytery  he  had 
to  go  on  horseback  eighty  miles  to  Newtown,  now  a 
church  in  greater  New  York.  Says  Mr.  Beecher  in 
his  reminiscences,  **  There  was  not  a  store  in  town, 
and  all  our  purchases  were  made  in  New  York  by  a 
small  schooner  that  ran  once  a  week.  We  had  no 
carpets:  there  was  not  a  carpet  from  end  to  end  of 
the  town.  All  had  sanded  floors,  some  of  them  worn 
through;  your  mother  introduced  the  first  carpet. 
Uncle  Lot  gave  me  some  money  and  I  had  an  itch  to 
spend  it.  Went  to  a  vendue  and  bought  a  bale  of 
cotton.  She  spun  it  and  had  it  woven;  then  she  laid 
it  down,  sized  it,  and  painted  it  in  oils,  with  a  border 
all  around  it,  and  bunches  of  roses  and  other  flowers 
over  the  center.  .  .  .  The  folks  of  the  viflage  thought 
it  fine.  Old  Deacon  Tallmadge  came  to  see  me.  He 
stopped  at  the  parlor  door  and  seemed  afraid  to  come 
in.  *  Walk  in,  deacon,  walk  in,'  said  I.  *  Why  I 
can't,'  said  he,  *  'thout  steppin'  on't.'  Then  after  sur- 
veying it  awhile  in  admiration  — *  D'ye  think,  Brother 
Beecher,  ye  can  have  all  that,  and  heaven  too  ?  '  " 

The  example  of  a  minister  on  a  community  is  strik- 
ingly seen  in  the  following  extract.  It  is  from  a  letter 
of    May,    1802.     *'  I    am    able   to    cut    wood.     Have 


LYMAN  BEECHER  43 

planted  my  apple  seeds,  set  out  more  trees,  and  begun 
to  plant  my  garden."  And  then  follows  the  comment, 
'*  Mine  was  the  first  orchard  in  East  Hampton.  Peo- 
ple had  had  the  impression  that  fruit  would  not  do 
well  so  near  the  salt  water,  and  laughed  when  they 
saw  me  setting  out  trees.  ...  It  was  not  long,  how- 
ever, before  others,  seeing  how  well  my  orchard  was 
thriving,  began  to  set  out  trees.  Now  apples  are 
plenty  there.  In  our  front  door-yard  your  Mother 
had  flowers  and  shrubs,  and  some  of  them  are  there 
yet.  There  is  a  snow  ball  and  catalpa  which  she  set 
out;  others  saw  this  and  did  the  same.  The  wood 
piles  were  cleared  away  from  the  street  in  front  of 
the  houses,  and  door-yards  made  pretty,  and  shade 
trees  set  out;  and  now  you  will  not  find  many  places 
prettier  in  summer  than  East  Hampton." 

Lyman  Beecher's  second  church  was  at  Litchfield, 
Connecticut,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  towns  of  New 
England.  It  was  the  seat  of  a  famous  Law  School, 
afterward  removed  to  New  Haven  and  made  part  of 
Yale  University.  Here  was  also  a  girls'  school  that 
drew  young  women  from  all  parts  of  the  Eastern 
States,  a  forerunner  of  the  colleges  and  the  higher  edu- 
cation of  women.  Litchfield  was  noted  for  its  able 
and  distinguished  men,  and  for  its  cultivated  women. 
A  French  Count  who  came  to  visit  the  law  school  de- 
clared that  '*  Litchfield  had  the  most  charming  society 
in  the  world."  The  Governor  of  the  State  lived  here 
and  a  United  States  Senator.  Yet  there  were  few 
marks  of  separation  —  few  social  distinctions  that  pre- 
vented community  of  feeling  and  interest.  There  were 
no  great  fortunes  that  tended  to  standards  of  living 
impossible  for  the  majority  of  men.  The  pastor  of 
the  Litchfield   Church,  the  first  man  in  town  intel- 


44  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

lectually  and  in  religious  and  social  leadership,  had  a 
salary  of  $8cx). 

The  following  pictures  from  Catherine  Beecher,  the 
oldest  daughter,  afterwards  the  famous  teacher  at 
Hartford,  will  help  one  to  understand  the  combined 
simplicity  and  intellectual  life  of  the  time.  **  No  less 
distinguished  in  point  of  literary  cultivation  was  the 
family  of  George  Gould,  for  many  years  associated 
with  Judge  Reeve  in  the  law  school,  and  afterward  its 
principal.  He  was  of  fine  appearance,  polished  man- 
ners, extensive  acquaintance  with  the  English  Classics, 
and  in  all  matters  of  rhetorical  or  verbal  criticism  his 
word  was  law.  The  Judge  was  fond  of  disputing  with 
father,  in  a  good  natured  way,  the  various  points  of 
orthodoxy  handled  in  his  discussions,  particularly  the 
doctrine  of  total  depravity,  and  in  a  letter  written  dur- 
ing the  last  war,  when  party  feeling  ran  high  —  the 
Democrats  for,  the  Federalists  against  French  influ- 
ence —  he  sent  a  humorous  message :  *  Tell  Mr. 
Beecher  I  am  improving  in  orthodoxy.  I  have  got  so 
far  as  this,  that  I  believe  in  the  total  depravity  of  the 
whole  French  nation.'  "  She  says  of  Miss  Pierce's 
school  for  girls,  *'  The  school  house  was  a  small  build- 
ing of  only  one  room,  probably  not  exceeding  30x70 
feet,  with  small  closets  at  each  end,  one  large  enough 
to  hold  a  piano,  and  the  other  used  for  bonnets  and 
overgarments.  The  plainest  pine  desks,  long  plank 
benches,  a  small  table,  and  an  elevated  teacher's  chair, 
constituted  the  whole  furniture.  At  that  time  the 
higher  branches  had  not  entered  girls'  schools.  Map- 
drawing,  painting,  embroidery  and  the  piano  were  the 
accomplishments  sought,  and  history  was  the  only  study 
added  to  geography,  grammar,  and  arithmetic.  Miss 
Pierce  had  a  great  admiration  for  the  English  Classics, 


LYMAN  BEECHER  45 

and  inspired  her  pupils  with  the  same.  She  some- 
times required  the  girls  to  commit  to  memory  choice 
selections  of  English  poetry.  And  her  daily  counsels 
were  interspersed  with  quotations  from  English  clas- 
sics." Mr.  Beecher  helped  the  school  by  frequent  ad- 
vice and  address,  and  by  such  voluntary  service  his 
own  daughter  had  her  tuition.  Here  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  the  first  woman  novelist  of  our  land,  gained 
her  first  schooling.  The  girls  found  homes  in  the 
village,  and  through  his  entire  pastorate  at  Litchfield, 
girls  from  the  school  were  members  of  his  family. 
It  was  a  life  so  homogeneous  that  the  influence  of  an 
attractive  and  devoted  preacher  and  pastor  touched  the 
entire  community. 

Here  is  the  picture  of  a  wood  bee :  **  When  the 
auspicious  day  arrived,  the  snow  was  thick,  smooth  and 
well  packed  for  the  occasion;  the  sun  shone  through 
a  sharp,  dry,  and  frosty  air ;  and  the  whole  town  was 
astir.  Toward  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  runners 
arrived  with  news  of  the  gathering  squadrons  —  Mt. 
Tom  was  coming  with  all  its  farmers;  Bradleyville 
also;  Chestnut  Hill,  and  the  North  and  South  Settle- 
ments ;  while  the  town  hill  gentry  were  on  the  qui  vive 
to  hunt  up  every  sled  and  yoke  of  oxen  not  employed 
by  their  owners.  Before  sundown,  the  yard,  street, 
and  the  lower  rooms  of  our  house  were  swarming  with 
cheerful  faces.  Father  was  ready  with  his  cordial 
greetings,  adroit  in  detecting  and  admiring  the  special 
merits  of  every  load  as  it  arrived.  The  kind  farmers 
wanted  to  see  all  the  children,  and  we  were  busy  as 
bees  in  waiting  on  them.  The  boys  heated  the  flip 
irons  and  passed  round  the  cider  and  flip  while  Aunt 
Esther  and  the  daughters  were  as  busy  in  serving  the 
doughnuts,  cake,  and  cheese ;  and  such  a  mountainous 


46  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

wood  pile  as  rose  in  our  yard  never  before  was  seen 
in  ministerial  domains  !  " 

Mr.  Beecher's  life  in  Boston  was  not  so  different 
from  the  village  pastor.  Boston  couldn't  have  reached 
50,000  people.  There  was  the  self-respect  of  long  in- 
heritance and  something  of  a  world-outlook  through 
her  merchants,  an  intellectual  ferment  among  her  in- 
telligent people.  But  there  was  still  much  of  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  colonial  isolation.  No  steamships  brought 
the  Old  World  near  —  only  the  slow  and  lumbering 
stage  connected  with  distant  towns  and  other  states. 
Mr.  Beecher  went  with  his  own  horse  and  chaise  from 
Litchfield  to  Portland  to  marry  his  second  wife.  And 
the  household  in  moving  to  Boston  made  a  slow  cara- 
van, just  as  the  emigrants  from  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  came  into  the  forests  of  central  New 
York  at  the  same  time. 

Even  as  late  as  1832,  when  Dr.  Beecher,  then  recog- 
nized as  the  first  preacher  of  New  England,  started 
for  Cincinnati  to  be  the  first  President  of  Lane  Sem- 
inary and  the  Professor  of  Theology,  the  way  was 
long  and  painful.  To  New  York  by  water,  then  by 
coach  and  horses  to  Philadelphia,  thence  over  the  Alle- 
ghany Mountains  into  Pittsburgh,  and  finally  down 
the  Ohio,  by  boat  or  by  stage  all  the  way.  It  took 
more  weeks  to  make  the  journey  then  than  it  does 
days  to-day.  Chicago  was  no  more  than  a  frontier 
fort  and  a  trading  village  attached.  Cincinnati  was  a 
thriving  river  town,  by  its  easy  water  connection  the 
center  of  the  western  world.  But  it  was  largely  a 
pioneer  world,  unknown  and  undeveloped,  rough  and 
eager,  ambitious  and  hopeful.  Into  this  life  of  exuber- 
ant youth  Dr.  Beecher  came,  a  man  of  fifty-eight,  to 
lay  the  foundation  of  a  new  enterprise  and  meet  the 


LYMAN  BEECHER  47 

hardships  and  struggles  of  a  new  land.  But  he  was 
undaunted;  it  stirred  his  blood,  his  whole  manhood 
responded  to  it.     He  was  another  Ulysses, 

".  .  .  Strong  in  will 
To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield." 

The  people  of  the  West  were  not  so  different  from 
the  East,  only  with  a  new  freedom,  born  of  the  ex- 
panse of  rivers  and  prairies.  They  were  practically  all 
of  eastern  stock,  children  of  the  first  foreign  invasion, 
some  of  them  from  his  former  parishes.  This  rough, 
free,  simple  life  suited  his  own  independent,  unconven- 
tional, democratic  nature.  He  entered  into  it  without 
reserve  and  tried  to  guide  it  into  ways  of  righteous- 
ness. He  could  do  anything  that  became  a  man,  and 
he  had  everything  to  do.  He  had  the  care  of  all  the 
churches.  He  answered  notable  occasions  of  churches 
and  colleges,  he  labored  in  special  services  to  begin 
churches  or  revive  the  faith  of  the  weak.  He  could 
swim  his  horse  through  a  swollen  stream,  and  travel 
the  forest  paths  in  as  rapt  contemplation  of  Christian 
truth  as  Edwards  enjoyed  in  the  groves  of  Northamp- 
ton. He  saw  hope  where  others  read  disaster.  He 
carried  enterprises  through  by  the  force  of  his  per- 
sonality; it  was  the  force  of  a  great  faith.  He  rode 
his  horse  over  rough  and  wet  roads,  seventy  miles  in 
twenty  hours,  that  he  might  be  at  Fort  Wayne,  In- 
diana, for  the  installation  of  one  of  his  sons.  That 
test  was  hard  enough  to  meet  the  demands  of  a  Roose- 
velt. He  had  an  equivalent  mental  hardihood  which,  as 
w^e  shall  show,  served  him  well  through  those  years  in 
which  he  struggled  to  hold  New  England  in  the  Evan-^ 
gelical  camp. 


48  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

2 

The  Religious  and  Theological  Contests 

The  first  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  a 
period  of  great  intellectual  and  spiritual  ferment.  The 
isolation  of  the  colonial  period  had  been  broken.  The 
Revolution  had  brought  America  into  touch  with  Eu- 
rope. The  spirit  of  democracy,  the  worth  and  free- 
dom of  the  individual,  reacted  against  the  authority 
of  a  dogmatic  Puritanism.  The  literature  and  phi- 
losophy of  the  Old  World  spoke  of  the  freedom  of  the 
Spirit,  the  promise  of  larger  life. 

It  was  no  wonder  —  it  was  inevitable  —  that  these 
voices  were  heard  in  the  new  nation,  conscious  of  its 
strength,  dazzled  with  visions  of  its  future.  Every 
bond  of  liberty  must  be  thrown  oflF;  every  obstacle  to 
progress  be  broken  down.  In  the  struggles  of  the 
New  World  the  necessary  restraints  of  virtue,  the  laws 
of  reverence  and  obedience,  were  often  broken  with  the 
shackles  of  despotic  thought  and  government. 

When  Lyman  Beecher  entered  Yale,  the  first  Presi- 
dent Dwight  was  giving  the  sermons  and  lectures  that 
did  so  much  to  bring  the  spirit  of  reverence  and  devo- 
tion into  the  life  of  the  college.  At  first  the  number 
of  professing  Christians  among  the  students  of  Yale 
could  be  numbered  by  the  fingers  of  one  hand,  and 
Bishop  Meade  of  Virginia  said  that  he  expected  to 
meet  a  disciple  of  Tom  Paine  in  every  e3ucated  man 
he  met. 

Lyman  Beecher  was  of  that  intellectual  and  moral 
nature  to  receive  the  old  truths  of  religion  that  had 
been  preached  by  Edwards  and  re-interpreted  by 
Dwight  and  to  take  them  into  the  new  world  of  ideals, 
struggles,  and  hope,  and  make  them  the  vital  elements 


LYMAN  BEECHER  49 

of  personal  character  and  social  and  national  progress. 

He  had  his  own  philosophy  of  religion,  he  worked 
out  the  natural  realism  of  Reid  and  Hamilton,  the 
Scotch  School,  without  even  reading  their  lectures. 
But  his  doctrine  was  shaped  by  its  purpose  to  reach 
and  save  men.  His  evangelical  spirit  modified  and 
shaped  his  doctrine.  He  helped  to  break  the  bondage 
of  dogmatism  and  make  Christianity  the  practical  in- 
strument of  salvation. 

Lyman  Beecher  was  in  the  thick  of  every  contest 
where  he  felt  the  truth  was  at  stake.  He  was  a  sort 
of  knight-errant  preacher.  But  he  never  opposed  men 
save  as  he  felt  they  opposed  the  truth  and  so  stood  in 
the  way  of  the  salvation  of  others.  He  was  singu- 
larly committed  to  the  truth  as  he  conceived  it  an  in- 
strument of  life  and  remarkably  free  from  all  mere 
personal  spirit  in  his  work. 

Infidelity  was  widespread  when  he  began  his  min- 
istry. He  felt  called  to  his  first  church  **  to  break  the 
heads  of  these  infidels."  His  intense  nature  was  fond 
of  using  strong  figures  of  speech,  but  no  man  had  a 
tenderer  heart  or  treated  men  with  more  personal  con- 
sideration. He  was  a  sort  of  Roosevelt  of  the  pulpit. 
An  infidel  club  had  been  formed  in  East  Hampton, 
not  very  large  in  point  of  members,  but  composed  of 
men  of  talent,  education,  and  indefatigable  zeal.  In 
1785  the  Clinton  Academy  had  been  founded,  the  first 
to  be  chartered  by  the  Regents  of  the  State.  It  hap- 
pened that  two  of  the  teachers  employed  were  skep- 
tical and  they  had  sown  the  seeds  of  unbelief  in  a 
whole  generation "  of  young  people.  So  when  Mr. 
Beecher  went  to  the  place,  he  felt  it  was  infidelity  or 
revivals.  To  use  his  own  words,  **  I  did  not  attack 
infidelity  directly.     Not  at  all.     That  would  have  been 


so  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

cracking  a  whip  behind  a  runaway  team  —  made  them 
run  the  faster.  I  always  preached  right  to  the  con- 
science. Every  sermon  with  my  eye  on  the  gun  to  hit 
somebody.  Went  through  the  doctrines ;  showed  what 
they  didn't  mean ;  what  they  did ;  then  the  argument ; 
knocked  away  objection,  and  drove  home  on  the  con- 
science. They  couldn't  get  up  their  prejudices,  be- 
cause I  had  got  them  away.  At  first  there  was  wink- 
ing and  blinking  from  below  to  gallery,  forty  or  fifty 
exchanging  glances,  smiling  and  watching.  But  when 
that  was  over,  infidelity  was  ended,  for  it  was  infi- 
delity, for  the  most  part,  that  had  its  roots  in  mis- 
understanding." 

At  Litchfield,  Lyman  Beecher  engaged  in  the  con- 
test for  the  **  standing  order  of  Connecticut."  The 
Congregational  Church  was  the  established  form  of 
worship,  and  no  other  church  had  legal  standing  in  the 
community.  With  the  growth  of  population  and  the 
coming  in  of  other  views  of  life  and  religion,  the  old 
church  was  not  comprehensive  enough  to  meet  the 
need  of  the  community.  The  members  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church  demanded  a  richer  form  of  worship,  the 
Methodists  a  more  emotional  type,  and  both  reacted 
against  the  dogmas  of  Puritanism.  In  the  communi- 
ties there  was  a  growing  number  that  found  the  sup- 
port of  religion  irksome,  and  the  indifference  to  the 
Church  was  fanned  into  hot  opposition  by  the  effort 
to  invoke  the  law  for  the  support  of  the  Church  and 
for  the  enforcement  of  the  strict  laws  of  the  Puritan 
Sabbath.  So  religion  inevitably  became  a  matter  of 
politics.  The  Federal  or  Conservative  party  was  de- 
voted to  the  existing  order,  the  Democratic  party  stood 
for  freedom  in  religion  and  the  entire  separation  of 
Church  and  State. 


LYMAN  BEECHER  5 1 

Lyman  Beecher  worked  in  vain  to  maintain  the  po- 
sition and  power  of  the  Congregational  Church.  He 
tried  to  influence  pubHc  opinion  and  rally  his  brethren 
for  the  defense  of  the  faith,  identifying,  as  good  men 
have  so  often  done,  their  own  views  and  interests  with 
the  cause  of  religion  itself.  It  was  a  lost  cause.  The 
Democratic  party  was  triumphant,  the  standing  order 
was  abolished,  and  the  support  of  religion  made  a 
matter  of  individual  choice  and  all  churches  placed  on 
equal  footing  before  the  law.  The  heart  of  Beecher 
sank  before  this  flood  of  seeming  indifference  and  op- 
position to  the  Church.  But  he  lived  to  regard  the 
storm  as  big  with  blessing,  the  new  freedom  of  the 
Church  as  quickening  its  responsibility  and  giving  it 
a  better  access  to  the  hearts  of  men. 

His  Boston  pastorate  was  in  the  flush  of  his  power, 
the  high  noon  of  his  manhood,  and  he  had  come  to  his 
place  at  the  fullness  of  time.     The  age  needed  him. 

The  orthodox  churches  of  Boston  were  in  a  sad 
minority.  Social  and  political  influences  were  all  on 
the  side  of  the  Unitarians.  The  theological  landslide 
had  swept  the  generation.  Beecher  began  bravely  and 
patiently  to  construct  over  against  this  destruction  of 
faith.  He  felt  the  revolt  had  gone  so  far  through  the 
misconception  of  the  essential  truths  of  the  Gospel, 
due  in  part  to  the  wrong  way  in  which  they  had  been 
held  and  taught.  He  entered  into  no  needless  contro- 
versy. He  tried  to  remove  misconceptions,  to  state  the 
Gospel  positively  as  he  understood  it,  to  commend  it 
to  the  reason  and  experience  of  men  —  to  urge  it  as  a 
matter  of  life  and  death.  He  especially  tried  to 
awaken  the  sense  of  moral  need,  and  to  present  the 
Gospel  as  a  redemption  from  sin,  within  the  reach  of 
every  man's  choice. 


52  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

"  From  the  time  of  his  settlement  in  Boston  to  the 
time  of  his  removal  to  the  West,  there  was  one  con- 
tinuous, unbroken  revival,  less  powerful  at  some  times, 
but  never  wholly  intermitted." 

Such  successful  preaching  of  the  Evangel  was  bound 
to  meet  opposition,  even  to  arouse  bitter  enmity.  The 
excitement  was  so  great  that  when  Hanover  Street 
Church  was  burned,  the  firemen  refused  to  act,  stand- 
ing by  and  singing  in  derision : 

"While  Beech^r's  church  holds  out  to  burn, 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return." 

I  think  it  may  be  truthfully  said  that  Lyman  Beecher 
was  the  chief  human  force  that  turned  the  tide  in  New 
England,  and  finally  won  the  day  for  an  evangelical 
faith.  He  carried  the  same  spirit  into  the  theological 
controversies  of  his  own  church.  He  manfully  con- 
tended for  direct  appeal  to  the  sense  of  moral  respon- 
sibility, and  for  freedom  in  the  interpretation  of  creeds. 
He  could  not  please  the  hyper-orthodox  who  would 
have  every  man  ally  himself  with  a  distinct  party  in  the 
Church.  The  controversy  between  Andover  and  New 
Haven,  between  a  fixed  and  a  growing  faith,  was  car- 
ried into  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  met  Dr.  Beecher 
as  he  took  up  his  work  at  Lane.  He  was  regarded 
with  suspicion  as  the  teacher  of  a  dangerous  liberalism. 
He  was  tried  for  heresy  before  the  three  courts  of  the 
Church,  the  Presbytery,  the  Synod,  and  the  General 
Assembly,  more  than  one  man's  share  of  such  turmoil, 
and  acquitted  in  each,  the  last  acquittance  by  the  last 
Assembly  of  the  old  church,  before  the  rending  into 
the  Old  School  and  the  New. 


LYMAN  BEECHER  S3 


The  Place  of  the  Pulpit  in  American  Life 

The  career  of  Lyman  Beecher  shows  the  place  of 
the  pulpit  in  American  life.  It  was  the  chief  force  in 
the  development  of  individual  and  national  life.  Ly- 
man Beecher  was  the  true  leader  in  the  community  — 
he  made  for  social  unity.  He  rallied  the  people  about 
the  institutions  of  religion,  brought  them  together 
through  their  common  purpose  and  their  faith  in  him 
as  their  teacher  and  leader,  and  by  the  practical  aim 
and  nature  of  his  teaching  permeated  the  community 
with  the  sense  of  human  worth  and  brotherly  obliga- 
tion. 

He  made  for  moral  order  and  growth.  He  had  a 
prophetic  spirit,  he  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  he  had 
an  ideal  distinctly  in  advance  of  his  age  and  he  called 
men  to  a  higher  life.  He  held  God's  plumb-line  against 
the  structures  that  man  had  made.  He  was  the  first 
to  speak  out  against  duelling  when  the  nation  was 
shocked  by  the  tragic  death  of  Hamilton,  and  he  helped 
to  put  an  end  to  this  vestige  of  barbarism.  He  was 
first  in  the  Temperance  Reform.  He  had  been  filled 
with  shame  and  indignation  at  the  growing  drinking 
habits  of  the  clergy.  At  two  installations  the  drink- 
ing had  been  so  heavy  that  church  committees  com- 
plained of  the  expense.  The  ministers  were  not 
drunk,  but  there  was  an  undue  amount  of  exhilaration. 
A  committee  had  been  appointed  to  make  inquiries  and 
report  measures  to  remedy  the  evil.  They  reported 
that  nothing  could  be  done.  *'  Not  so,"  thought  Ly- 
man Beecher.  "  The  blood  started  through  my  heart 
when  I  heard  this,"  he  said;  and  then  began  action 


54  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

which  resulted  in  the  forming  of  temperance  societies, 
making  addresses  and  allying  the  Church  on  the  side 
of  moral  reform. 

He  was  equally  opposed  to  slavery ;  while  he  could 
not  follow  the  lead  of  the  radical  abolitionist,  his  voice 
was  ever  on  the  side  of  emancipation  throughout  that 
long  national  debate. 

He  made  for  the  development  of  education.  His 
preaching  and  personal  influence  quickened  in  young 
men  and  women  the  ambition  for  the  best  training  and 
use.  It  is  seen  in  the  life  of  his  big  family  of  boys 
and  girls.  They  made  notable  contributions  to  the 
higher  life  of  the  land. 

He  had  a  vision  of  the  great  West  and  felt  the  im- 
portance of  Christian  education  to  its  development  and 
moral  welfare.  He  helped  to  form  the  education  so- 
ciety that  cherished  the  planting  and  growth  of  Chris- 
tian schools  in  the  newer  states  and  trained  men  and 
women  for  Christian  leadership. 

He  gave  his  own  life  to  the  work  and  inspired  his 
sons  to  a  like  service.  He  had  a  prophetic  vision  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  had  the  missionary  passion 
to  carry  the  Gospel  through  every  open  door.  He 
heard  the  call  of  the  world  and  his  conception  of  the 
Gospel  made  him  feel  his  responsibilty  to  the  utmost 
limit.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  American 
Bible  Society.  He  helped  to  organize  the  American 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  and  formed  the  first  aux- 
iliary, in  the  Missionary  Society  of  Litchfield  County, 
Connecticut. 

The  prophetic  vision  once  more  came  true.  The  wa- 
ters that  healed  everything  they  touched  —  that  made 
the  desert  into  a  garden  -^  flpv^^d  from  the  altar  of  the 
sanctuary. 


LYMAN  BEECHER  55 

4 

The  Man  and  the  Preacher 

It  is  not  easy  to  make  Lyman  Beecher  live  again  — 
the  century  since  he  was  in  the  fullness  of  his  powers 
has  made  so  many  and  deep  impressions  upon  Ameri- 
can life  that  he  cannot  speak  to  us  as  to  the  men  of  his 
age.  But  he  was  about  the  most  live  man  in  the  Amer- 
ican pulpit  for  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Of  course  his  sermons  are  not  literature;  they  have 
little  of  that  subtle  union  of  imagination  and  feeling 
that  gives  an  unfading  charm  to  whatever  is  written, 
almost  without  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  subject. 
For  the  power  of  his  preaching  we  have  to  rely  almost 
solely  upon  the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  him  best. 
Certainly  in  his  case  the  words  of  Phillips  Brooks  are 
true  that  the  best  sermons  can  never  be  printed,  that 
a  sermon  that  is  good  to  hear  is  not  good  to  read. 
And  Lyman  Beecher's  sermons,  while  always  care- 
fully thought  out,  depended  upon  his  audiences  for 
their  expression  and  passion.  They  always  had  an 
immediate  purpose  that  gave  them  their  form  and 
power.  As  truly  as  in  the  case  of  Henry  Clay  the 
effect  was  the  outgoing  of  a  magnetic  personality,  and 
can,  in  no  sense,  be  understood  from  the  printed  page. 

The  three  volumes  of  Beecher's  works  are  made  up 
of  occasional  addresses,  sermons  at  special  gatherings 
of  the  general  church  and  that  dealt  with  the  theolog- 
ical discussions  of  the  day  or  of  current  phases  of  po- 
litical and  social  life.  They  have  the  mark  of  the 
time  upon  them!  While  every  question  is  discussed 
in  the  light  of  a  spiritual  Gospel,  it  had  its  individual 
emphasis  which  we  could  not  think  interpreted  truth 
for  us. 


56  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Take  the  address,  '*  A  Plea  for  the  West/'  spoken  in 
many  places  of  the  East  and  afterwards  enlarged  and 
printed  as  a  small  volume.  It  was  prophetic  in  seeing 
the  value  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  in  the  growth  of 
the  nation  and  in  calling  for  men  and  money  to  lay 
broad  foundations  for  education  and  religion  as  an 
act  of  highest  patriotism.  It  was  a  trumpet  call.  A 
score  of  colleges  might  be  traced  to  its  influence.  It 
is  a  striking'  example  of  the  relation  of  the  pulpit 
to  the  higher  life  of  the  nation.  But  more  than  half 
of  the  argument  is  devoted  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
warning  his  countrymen  against  the  plots  and  schemes 
of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  and  Catholic  monarchs  of 
the  Old  World  to  overthrow  our  republican  govern- 
ment and  free  religion  by  systematic  emigration  of 
Catholic  peoples  and  the  sending  of  Catholic  mission- 
aries. That  such  suspicion  was  natural  and  almost 
universal  among  Protestants  in  the  uncertainty  of  our 
republican  experiments  and  the  struggle  of  churches 
to  win  a  place  in  the  New  World  must  be  admitted. 
Lyman  Beecher  made  a  strong  appeal  and  closed  it 
with  a  tolerance  ahead  of  his  age.  But  in  this  respect 
he  was  too  much  the  slave  of  his  age,  and  not  its  true 
interpreter.  No  man  could  speak  in  that  way  to-day 
and  be  regarded  as  a  true  leader.  Such  a  man  would 
be  rightly  thought  as  lacking  in  magnanimity. 

But  Lyman  Beecher  was  thoroughly  alive.  He  was 
alive  to  his  finger  tips.  He  had  to  be  at  the  center  of 
things.  He  was  always  found  where  the  work  was 
the  hardest,  the  contest  between  truth  and  error  the 
fiercest.  He  was  foremost,  not  by  exalting  self  over 
his  fellows,  not  by  a  dominant  self-assertion  that  pushed 
its  way  to  leadership.  He  was  first  by  the  full  use  of 
his  native  gifts  and  his  spiritual  attainment. 


LYMAN  BEECHER  57 

He  had  a  remarkable  physical  vitality.  He  was  not 
a  large  man,  but  he  had  a  boundless  energy.  He  did 
the  work  of  two  or  three  men  all  his  life.  He  was 
not  always  a  well  man,  but  he  could  not  be  kept  down, 
he  would  not  give  up.  And  his  native  vigor  triumphed 
again  and  again  over  disease  or  exhaustion. 

This  physical  basis  of  the  man,  that  sent  its  energy 
through  all  the  veins  of  life,  was  the  gift  of  his  race. 
His  father  and  his  grandfather  before  him  were  black- 
smiths and  considered  the  strongest  men  of  the  com- 
munity. They  hammered  out  their  iron  on  an  anvil 
made  of  the  oak  under  which  Davenport  preached  his 
first  sermon  at  New  Haven.  And  this  inherited  vi- 
tality was  felt  in  all  he  did.  *'  I  was  made  for  action," 
he  says.  *'  The  Lord  drove  me,  but  I  was  ready.  I've 
always  been  going  at  full  speed." 

His  letters  are  stories  of  campaigns.  Such  hard- 
ness brought  moments  of  weakness.  The  intense  use 
of  intellect  and  nervous  force  affected  his  stomach, 
and  he  always  knew  there  was  an  enemy  within.  But 
he  was  on  guard  and  kept  his  vigor  by  manly  exercise. 
In  his  country  parishes  he  worked  his  fields  and  took 
long  tramps  with  gun  or  rod.  He  always  had  the 
spirit  of  play,  his  blood  coursed  with  the  youthful 
spirit,  and  his  crew  of  restless  boys  made  him  a  com- 
panion of  their  sports.  But  he  trained  himself  that 
the  body  might  be  the  best  witness  and  servant  of  the 
soul.  When  he  was  a  Boston  pastor  '*  He  kept  a  load 
of  sand  in  his  cellar,  to  which  he  would  run  at  odd 
intervals  and  shovel  vigorously,  .  .  .  and  his  wood  pile 
and  wood  saw  were  inestimable  means  to  the  same  end. 
He  had  also  in  the  back  yard  parallel  bars,  a  single 
bar,  ladder,  and  other  simple  gymnastic  apparatus, 
where   he   would   sometimes   astonish   his   ministerial 


58  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

visitors  by  climbing  ropes  hand  over  hand,  whirling 
over  on  the  single  bar,  lifting  weights  and  performing 
other  athletic  feats,  in  which  he  took  for  the  time  as 
much  apparent  delight  and  pride  as  in  any  of  his  in- 
tellectual exertions.  His  care  of  what  he  called  regi- 
men—  diet,  sleep,  exercise  —  went  on  with  all  his 
other  cares  without  seeming  to  interrupt  them.  He 
seemed  to  navigate  his  body,  as  an  acute  mariner  would 
work  his  ship  through  a  difficult  channel,  with  his  eye 
intent  on  every  spar  and  rope,  each  sail  kept  trimmed 
with  the  nicest  adjustment."  ^ 

He  never  lost  sight  of  the  physical  side  of  life.  He 
knew  that  spiritual  states  were  connected  with  phys- 
ical conditions.  And  when  any  one  was  in  deep  men- 
tal distress,  he  always  made  inquiries  about  their  health. 
He  had  a  clinical  theology,  when  the  idea  had  not  been 
discovered  by  the  pulpit.  In  this  matter  he  was  a 
generation  ahead  of  his  time.  He  disliked  morbid 
introspection  and  felt  that  such  books  as  Brainerd's 
'*  Life  "  and  Edwards'  '*  On  the  Affections  "  were  a 
bad  generation  of  books  for  young  people. 

He  always  felt  that  his  own  health  was  connected 
with  his  work.  And  in  the  midst  of  a  special  revival 
effort  he  writes  to  his  wife:  **  With  good  appetite, 
unexhausted  spirits,  and  as  fine  sleep  and  firm  health 
as  I  ever  had  —  so  you  see  the  promise  is  fulfilled, 
*  As  thy  day,  so  shall  thy  strength  be.'  Perhaps  the 
secret  of  my  faltering  health  for  some  time  past  may 
be  want  of  employment,  or  rather  want  of  concentra- 
tion in  one  channel,  with  a  single  object  and  that  the 
noblest  and  most  delightful  in  which  men  or  angels 
can  engage  —  the  restoration  of  disordered  minds." 

1  Autobiography,  2  :  113. 


LYMAN  BEECHER  59 

Even  when  he  was  an  old  man,  beyond  active  work, 
and  the  Hght  of  intellect  seemed  passing  into  eclipse, 
his  body  was  vigorous.  '*  The  day  he  was  eighty-one," 
says  Professor  Stowe,  his  son-in-law,  *'  he  was  with 
me  in  Andover,  and  wished  to  attend  my  lecture  in  the 
Seminary.  He  was  not  quite  ready  when  the  bell  rang, 
and  I  walked  on  in  the  usual  path  without  him.  Pres- 
ently he  came  skipping  along  across-lots,  laid  his  hand 
on  top  of  the  five-barred  fence,  which  he  cleared  at  a 
bound,  and  was  in  the  lecture-room  before  me.'* 

Lyman  Beecher  had  a  remarkable  intellectual  and 
spiritual  vitality.  He  was  open  to  impressions.  His 
mind  was  a  fertile  soil  where  the  best  thought  of  his 
age  took  root  and  grew  into  nourishing  fruit.  His 
life  was  fed  and  quickened  by  his  entire  environment. 
Books  were  few  but  he  mastered  the  tools  of  his  work. 
He  knew  his  Bible,  its  great  revelation  and  its  abun- 
dant material  for  teaching.  He  knew  the  New  Eng- 
land theologians  from  Edwards  to  D wight,  and  had 
deeply  pondered  upon  the  philosophy  of  their  doctrine. 

He  was  a  lover  of  literature  —  scanty  it  was  in  those 
New  England  homes  —  but  he  loved  his  Milton,  the 
grandeur  of  the  thought  and  the  stately  music  of  the 
verse  stirred  his  soul,  and  was  not  afraid  of  Scott 
when  most  ministers  looked  askance  at  this  teller  of 
sheer  lies.  He  gave  life  to  many  an  apple-paring  bee 
by  merry  contests  with  his  children  to  see  who  could 
tell  the  most  stories  from  Sir  Walter. 

But  his  life  was  sustained  and  enriched  by  his  own 
vital  powers.  He  was  a  vital  part  of  the  world.  He 
drew  life  from  all  that  touched  him.  His  ceaseless 
correspondence,  his  animated  conversation,  his  earnest 
discussions  all  expressed  the  largeness  of  his  life  and 
trained  his  own  powers  in  return.     In  the  best  sense 


6o  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

he  was  a  man  among  men,  alive  to  every  human  in- 
terest, active  in  every  worthy  concern.  He  was  above 
a  narrow  partisanship,  but  he  could  not  help  taking 
part  in  the  discussions  of  New  England  theology. 
And  he  always  stood  for  freedom  of  reverent  search, 
and  for  the  right  of  individual  teaching.  But  his  lib- 
erty of  prophesying  was  always  regardful  of  the  tem- 
per and  method  of  Christian  love.  His  sermon  on 
duelling,  the  lectures  on  temperance,  the  addresses  to 
workingmen  on  Political  Atheism,  the  Plea  for  the 
West,  his  intense  interest  in  the  slave,  his  sense  of  na- 
tional shame,  yet  national  worth,  reveal  the  alert  mind 
far-reaching  in  its  visions,  and  the  big  heart,  able  to 
feel  with  men  and  so  interpret  aright  the  movements 
and  issues  of  life. 

How  the  abounding  vitality  of  the  man  is  felt  in 
every  glimpse  of  his  home !  **  Occasionally  he  would 
raise  a  point  of  theology  on  some  incident  narrated, 
and  ask  the  opinion  of  one  of  his  boys,  and  run  a  sort 
of  tilt  with  him,  taking  up  the  wrong  side  of  the  ques- 
tion for  the  sake  of  seeing  how  the  youngster  could 
practice  his  logic.  If  the  party  on  the  other  side  did 
not  make  a  fair  hit  at  him,  however,  he  would  stop 
and  explain  to  him  what  he  ought  to  have  said."  And 
we  have  these  beautiful  words  from  Mrs.  Stowe: 
"  It  was  an  exuberant  and  glorious  life  while  it  lasted. 
The  atmosphere  of  his  household  was  replete  with 
moral  oxygen,  full  charged  with  intellectual  electricity. 
Nowhere  else  have  we  felt  anything  resembling  or 
equaling  it.  It  was  a  kind  of  moral  heaven,  the  pur- 
ity, vivacity,  inspiration  and  enthusiasm  of  which 
those  only  can  appreciate  who  have  lost  it,  and  feel 
that  in  this  world  there  is,  there  can  be  no  place  like 
home."     (2:309.) 


LYMAN  BEECHER  6l 

The  intellectual  and  moral  vigor  of  Lyman  Beecher 
found  voice  in  fullness  of  speech,  exuberance  of  fancy, 
sprightliness  of  humor  that  gave  charm  to  his  daily  in- 
tercourse and  to  his  public  speech  genuine  distinction. 
The  humor  was  in  the  situation  as  much  as  in  the  sur- 
prise of  thought  and  phrase.  He  was  careless  of  his 
person  and  had  the  absent-mindedness  that  comes  from 
complete  absorption  in  a  subject.  He  would  work 
on  his  sermons  Sunday  morning  oblivious  that  the 
last  bell  was  ringing  and  when  finally  roused  to  the 
fact  of  the  hour,  had  to  be  waylaid  by  some  watchful 
member  of  his  family,  lest  he  should  rush  into  his 
pulpit  in  slippers  and  study  gown.  In  public  discus- 
sions he  would  throw  his  glasses  over  his  head  in  the 
excitement  of  speech,  borrow  another  pair,  which 
would  finally  find  the  same  resting  place  on  his  head, 
and  so  on  until  the  top  of  his  head  was  crowned  with 
borrowed  glasses.  His  enthusiasm  was  something 
perennial.  The  fountain  of  feeling  seemed  always 
full,  flowing  out  in  common  conversation  in  joyful 
refreshment,  and  sweeping  like  a  full  tide  in  public 
speech. 

There  was  an  indescribable  authority  and  charm  of 
person,  the  gift  of  genius,  that  gave  him  instant  recog- 
nition and  influence.  There  was  a  certain  air  of  mys- 
tery, the  sense  of  unknown  depths  and  heights,  of  in- 
exhausted  riches  that  made  him  among  ministers  alone, 
like  Daniel  Webster  in  the  Senate. 

The  vitality  of  the  man  spoke  in  all  that  he  did, 
and  to  the  very  end  of  his  life.  **  Among  the  last 
times  he  ever  spoke  in  the  lecture- room  of  Plymouth 
Church,  he  said  feebly,  '  If  God  should  tell  me  that 
I  might  choose  '  (and  then  hesitating,  as  if  it  might 
seem  like  unsubmissiveness  to  the  divine  will)   *  that 


62  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

is,  if  God  said  that  it  was  His  will  that  I  should  choose 
whether  to  die  and  go  to  heaven,  or  to  begin  my  life 
over  again  and  work  once  more'  (straightening  him- 
self up,  and  his  eye  kindling,  with  his  fingers  lifted 
up)  *  I  would  enlist  again  in  a  minute.'  " 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  work  of  preacher.  Never 
was  a  man  more  unmistakably  called  by  nature  and 
opportunity  to  the  pulpit  than  Lyman  Beecher. 

His  eager  nature,  his  mental  keenness  and  breadth, 
his  strong  convictions,  his  quick  sympathies,  his  lively 
imagination,  his  vivid  speech,  his  moral  courage  made 
his  life  vocal.  He  must  speak  what  he  had  seen  and 
heard. 

And  the  age  helped  to  make  him  the  preacher  that 
he  was.  The  freedom  of  the  new  time,  the  mingling 
of  people  and  ideals,  the  contention  of  truth  and  error 
for  the  mastery,  the  exalting  of  speech  as  never  be- 
fore in  making  public  opinion,  in  deciding  the  fate  of 
individuals  and  the  nation  called  forth  the  utmost 
gift  of  the  man  as  a  teacher  of  the  Gospel. 

No  man  had  a  truer  conception  of  the  ministry  and 
his  own  opportunity.  He  gave  himself  and  all  he 
had  to  the  work  of  spiritual  teaching.  There  could 
be  no  more  eloquent  witness  of  this  fact  than  his 
seven  sons  in  the  ministry  and  his  daughters  teachers 
and  writers  of  even  larger  influence. 

He  has  set  forth  the  conception  of  the  preacher, 
unconsciously  the  witness  of  his  own  life :  "  Whether 
I  am  qualified  to  do  it  or  not,  I  am  well  convinced 
that  the  peace  and  power  of  the  Church  demands  noth- 
ing so  imperiously  as  a  ministry  inspired  with  zeal, 
enlarged  by  comprehensive  views,  blessed  with  a  dis- 
criminating intellect,  and  an  acute  but  animated  and 
popular  argumentation,  untrammeled  by  reading  pol- 


LYMAN  BEECHER  63 

ished  sermons,  and  able,  with  a  clear  mind  and  full 
heart,  to  look  saint  and  sinner  in  the  face  with  an  eye 
that  speaks,  and  a  hand  that  energizes,  and  a  heart 
that  overflows,  and  words  that  burn;  competent  and 
disposed,  under  the  guidance  of  the  wisdom  that  is 
from  above,  to  convince  gainsayers,  allay  fears,  soothe 
prejudice,  inspire  confidence  and  cooperation  in  re- 
vivals and  public  charities,  and  all  good  things  on  the 
part  of  all,  of  every  name,  who  substantially  hold  fast 
the  truth,  and  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity." 
(2:275.) 

Lyman  Beecher  trained  himself  for  his  high  call- 
ing. Largely  an  extemporaneous  preacher,  he  never 
trusted  to  natural  gifts.  He  was  always  preparing 
himself  for  his  work,  a  constant  student  of  the  Bible, 
theology,  literature  (such  as  he  had)  and  the  chief 
concerns  of  human  interest.  His  mind  was  full  of 
invention.  He  was  fertile  in  resources,  and  ever  plan- 
ning for  larger  things.  But  every  address  was  pre- 
pared with  painstaking  thoroughness.  It  was  said 
of  him  that  ''  he  was  given  to  the  lust  of  finish- 
mg. 

He  says  that  *'  a  cold  heart  and  pride  and  sloth  are 
the  only  formidable  impediments  to  extempore  speak- 
ing, where  there  is  common  sense  and  common  pow- 
ers of  elocution  cultivated  by  a  liberal  education.*' 
But  he  would  by  no  means  give  up  the  pen  **  and  that 
application  to  study  which,  if  it  can  be,  never  will  be 
without  writing."  And  he  writes  one  of  his  sons, 
"  You  will  not  forget  every  week  to  make  your  ser- 
mons as  good  as  you  can,  not  depending  on  extem- 
poraneous readiness  without  careful  and  discriminat- 
ing thought.  Have  one  sermon  every  week  that  will 
tax  your  intellect  and  the  intellect  of  your  hearers," 


64  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

In  such  words  we  see  the  way  the  first  preacher  of 
New  England  took  to  gain  his  power. 

He  always  had  a  practical  spirit  in  his  preaching. 
The  sermon  was  to  do  something,  and  whatever  made 
the  sermon  an  effective  instrument  was  welcomed  and 
used,  and  whatever  hindered  was  thrown  away  as  use- 
less. And  he  brought  all  truth  to  this  practical  test. 
A  truth  that  could  not  be  preached  was  not  a  Gospel 
truth,  but  of  vain  man's  speculation.  And  in  this 
spirit  he  broke  from  the  older  Calvinism  that  so  mag- 
nified the  sovereignty  of  God  as  to  leave  men  helpless 
in  sin,  waiting  for  some  act  of  omnipotence  to  change 
their  natures.  He  had  felt  the  listless  fatalism  or 
needless  pain  of  such  philosophy,  and  spoke  to  men 
as  free  and  responsible  and  roused  men  to  action  so 
that  his  preaching  was  constantly  followed  by  con- 
versions and  quickened  lives. 

He  was  the  fervent  evangelist  and  this  made  his 
message  the  good  news  that  brought  salvation.  He 
felt  that  theology  could  best  be  understood  in  the 
actual  work  of  saving  men.  So  it  was  evangelical 
revival  theology  that  he  preached. 

"  Into  theology  thus  considered,"  writes  his  life- 
long friend  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  of  New  Haven,  *'he 
went  as  a  war-horse  rushes  into  battle.  He  was  a 
man  of  the  people.  The  people  were  his  peers.  Any 
man  who  had  a  soul  to  save  or  lose  for  eternity  was 
his  equal.  He  went  to  the  encounter  of  the  popular 
mind  without  a  misgiving  or  a  doubt  of  the  absolute 
goodness  of  his  course,  or  of  his  own  ability,  under 
God,  to  carry  the  day.  For  such  encounter  he  was 
uncommonly  well  adapted.  By  his  deep,  rich,  warm, 
emotiveness  —  by  his  utter  informality  and  freedom 
from   pretense  —  by   his   insight,   his   intuitive   judg- 


LYMAN  BEECHER  65 

merit  of  what  not  to  say,  as  well  as  what  to  say  — 
by  his  power  to  shoot  arrowy  sentences,  short  but 
sharp  —  by  his  quaint  and  homely  illustrations,  and 
finally,  by  the  free  wit  and  humor  that  enlightened 
and  enlivened  all  he  did  and  said,  he  was  adapted  by 
Him  that  made  him,  when  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost, 
to  speak  to  the  dead  words  of  resurrection  power, 
and  to  bring  to  bear  on  the  desolate  captives  of  the 
destroyer  the  redeeming  powers  of  the  world  to 
come."     (2:579.) 

Dr.  Bacon  speaks  of  his  arrowy  sentences.  Dr. 
Beecher  had  the  power  of  epigram,  of  giving  his 
truth  the  stamp  of  the  proverb  and  so  making  it  the 
current  coin  of  thought.  His  sayings  were  quoted 
by  men  of  his  own  day  more  than  any  other  speaker 
or  writer  save  Benjamin  Franklin. 

He  appealed  to  imagination.  He  used  more  illus- 
trations than  the  speakers  of  his  time  and  so  there 
was  a  picturesque  quality  that  never  failed  to  interest 
his  hearers.  His  oldest  daughter,  Catherine,  speaks 
of  the  illuminating  and  invigorating  quality  of  her 
father's  sermons  that  she  found  in  no  other  preacher. 
He  loved  the  beauty  of  truth  and  tried  to  make  it 
glorious,  but  beauty  was  always  the  servant  of  truth. 
In  his  journal,  the  first  year  of  his  ministry,  he 
makes  this  comment  on  a  sermon  that  he  had  heard: 
"  Want  of  method  and  not  sufficient  substance  to  hold 
up  so  much  ornament.  A  person's  looks  may  be 
assisted  by  dress,  but  if  the  ornament  hide  the  person 
in  view,  animals  might  be  made  equally  beautiful. 
Maxim:  Never"  begin  to  flourish  till  you  have  said 
something  substantial  to  build  upon.  All  the  flour- 
ishes in  the  world  will  not  affect  the  mind  unless  they 
relate  to,   or  grow  out  of,   something  important,   of 


66  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

which  the  mind  is  previously  possessed.  Plain  speech 
is  best  to  interest  the  hearts  and  persuade."  And  that 
maxim  he  followed  all  his  life,  to  make  everything 
the  servant  of  truth.  He  used  to  say  that  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world  was  to  save  souls.  And  that  was 
one  of  the  last  things  he  ever  said.  That  was  his 
ruling  purpose.  It  never  left  him.  In  his  old  age, 
when  his  mind  was  partly  clouded,  a  friend  said  to 
him  in  the  presence  of  others,  '*  Dr.  Beecher,  you 
know  a  great  deal  —  tell  us  what  is  the  greatest  of 
all  things."  For  an  instant  the  cloud  was  rent,  and  a 
gleam  of  light  shot  forth  in  the  reply,  **  It  is  not  the- 
ology; it  is  not  controversy,  but  it  is  to  save  souls." 

And  in  this  passion  to  save  men,  he  was  signally 
free  from  pride  and  self-assertion  and  self-seeking, 
"  He  held  his  whole  being  subject  to  the  promotion 
of  Christ's  Kingdom,  and  he  rejoiced  in  all  the  genius, 
learning,  eloquence,  and  influence  of  all  or  any  of  his 
brethren,  regarding  their  gifts  as  his  capital  with 
which  the  good  cause  might  be  advanced."     (2:  530.) 

It  was  this  large-mindedness  that  helped  him  to 
win  men  indifferent  or  opposed  to  his  doctrine.  He 
went  to  Boston  in  the  heat  of  the  Unitarian  contro- 
versy. Three-fourths  of  the  churches  of  eastern 
Massachusetts  had  become  liberal  and  they  had  carried 
the  men  of  influence  with  them.  The  orthodox  was 
regarded  with  contempt  or  opposition.  Lyman 
Beecher  knew  that  men  could  not  live  on  negation, 
that  the  movement  was  in  part  a  reaction  from  the 
false  emphasis  of  orthodoxy.  He  was  able  to  inter- 
pret the  heart  and  bring  many  to  a  positive  faith. 
''  The  feeling  which  I  now  have,  and  have  from  the 
beginning  breathed  out  in  all  my  sermons,  is  the  same, 
if  I  can  judge,  which  Jesus  himself  experienced,  who 


i 


LYMAN  BEECHER  67 

was  moved  with  compassion  when  he  saw  the  multi- 
tude, because  they  fainted  and  were  scattered  abroad 
as   sheep  having  no   shepherd. 

**  Now  in  addressing  such  an  audience  I  have  not 
felt  once  the  spirit  of  rebuke;  have  not  uttered  an 
ironical  or  sarcastic  expression;  have  not  struck  one 
stroke  at  an  antagonist,  or  spoke  as  if  I  was  aware 
that  there  were  any  hearing  who  thought  differently 
from  myself. 

**  I  have  taken  the  course  of  luminous  exposition 
calculated  to  prevent  objections,  and  applied  closely, 
as  to  its  experimental  bearings,  on  conscience  and 
heart,  and  held  up  in  various  forms  the  experience 
of  renewed  and  unrenewed  men,  enabling  Christians 
to  feel  that  they  have  religion,  and  compelling  sin- 
ners to  concede  that  they  have  not."     (1:483.) 

He  could  appreciate  others  and  use  them.  If  good 
was  done,  he  cared  little  by  whom,  or  who  had  the 
credit  for  it.  He  made  all  around  him  feel  they 
were  necessary  to  him.  And  so  he  had  the  elements 
of  true  leadership.  He  was  once  asked  why  h^s 
Boston  ministry  was  so  largely  useful,  and  he  an- 
swered, "  I  preach  on  Sunday  and  the  500  members 
of  my  church  are  practicing  all  the  week." 

It  is  hardly  safe  to  illustrate  some  of  the  qualities 
of  this  noble  preacher  from  the  printed  page.  The 
speaking  man  is  not  here,  the  intense  conviction,  the 
fiery  zeal,  the  thrilling  voice.  Take  the  sermon  on 
duelling  —  for  the  eager,  nervous  style,  the  mingled 
flashes  of  reason  and  scorn.  *'  What  has  torn  yonder 
wretches  from  the  embraces  of  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, and  driven  them  to  the  field  of  blood  —  to  the 
confines  of  hell?  What  nerves  those  arms,  rising 
to  sport  with  life  and  heaven?    It  is  honor;  the  pledge 


/ 


68  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

of  patriotism,  the  evidence  of  rectitude!  Ah!  it  is 
done!  The  blood  streams,  and  the  victim  welters  on 
the  ground.  And  see  the  victor  coward  running  from 
the  field,  and  for  a  few  days,  like  Cain,  a  fugitive 
and  a  vagabond,  until  the  first  burst  of  indignation 
has  passed,  and  the  hand  of  time  has  soothed  the 
outraged  sensibility  of  the  community;  then,  publicly, 
and  as  if  to  add  insult  to  injustice,  returning  to  offer 
his  services,  and  to  pledge  his  honor,  that  your  lives 
and  your  rights  shall  be  safe  in  his  hand/*  (2:39.) 
He  was  essentially  a  logical  preacher  —  he  never 
called  for  action  or  appealed  to  feeling  until  he  had 
abundantly  instructed  the  reason  —  but  it  was  always 
I  logic  on  fire  with  holy  desire.  Any  of  the  published 
sermons.  The  Bible  a  Code  of  Laws,  The  Building 
.  of  Waste  Places,  The  Government  of  God,  The  Faith 
\  once  delivered  to  the  Saints,  will  illustrate  the  com- 
bined argument  and  enthusiasm  of  his  sermons. 

The  secret  of  Lyman  Beecher's  power  as  preacher 
and  religious  leader,  as  far  as  such  power  can  be 
put  in  a  single  term,  is  vitality.  His  son-in-law,  Dr. 
Stowe,  has  given  the  reason  for  his  wide  and  benefi- 
cent influence  —  **  because  he  was  a  man  always 
most  thoroughly  in  earnest,  of  strong  powers  of  ob- 
servation, a  marvelous  fertility  and  facility  of  illus- 
tration, and  living  every  moment  under  the  impres- 
sion that  he  had  a  great  work  to  do  for  God  and  man, 
which  must  be  done  at  once,  not  a  minute  to  be 
lost."     (2:576.) 

And  Dr.  Bacon  adds,  **  If  I  were  to  sum  up  the 
character  of  his  eloquence  in  one  word,  that  one  word 
would  be  electricity.  Even  now,  if  you  read  atten- 
tively one  of  those  great  sermons  in  which  his  soul 
still  speaks,  you  see  this  quality.     The  whole  sequence 


LYMAN  BEECHER  69 

of  thought,  from  paragraph  to  paragraph  is  charged 
alike  with  meaning  and  with  feeHng,  and  each  Hnk 
of  the  chain  sparkles  with  electric  fire."  Lyman 
Beecher  was  a  vitalized  personality. 


i 


IV 

WILLIAM    ELLERY   CHANNING 

Studies  of  the  American  preacher  deal  chiefly  with 
the  orthodox  pulpit.  But  the  men  considered  are 
original  and  independent  natures,  some  of  them  with 
a  touch  of  genius ;  so  it  is  inevitable  that  they  should 
see  truth  in  new  light,  sometimes  leaving  the  beaten 
path  of  men,  and  several  have  been  under  suspicion 
for  unsound  doctrine.  The  great  majority,  however, 
have  confessed  the  Catholic  creeds  and  have  been  in 
the  line  of  the  development  of  the  historic  faith. 

But  it  would  be  an  imperfect  treatment  of  the 
American  pulpit  to  ignore  a  movement  that  has 
touched  some  of  our  best  minds  in  literature  and  the 
State,  that  in  proportion  to  its  numbers  has  had  a 
notable  pulpit,  that  has  left  its  helpful  mark  both  by 
action  and  reaction  upon  all  churches,  and  has  con- 
tributed to  the  higher  intellectual  and  social  life  of 
the  nation. 

William  Ellery  Channing  and  Theodore  Parker  are 
the  most  notable  preachers  and  exponents  of  the  Uni- 
tarian faith.  The  Unitarian  movement  is  too  large 
and  complex  for  even  a  brief  survey,  but  two  or  three 
facts  must  be  kept  in  mind  if  we  would  interpret 
aright  men  like  Channing  and   Parker. 

There  were  many  single  and  individual  reactions 
from  Calvinism  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,   especially   from  the  doctrine  of   the 

70 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  7^ 

Trinity,  Total  Depravity,  and  the  Atonement.  The 
number  was  multiplied  and  religious  thought  widely 
affected  by  the  spirit  of  civil  liberty  following  the 
American  and  French  Revolutions.  Calvinism  was 
connected  with  civil  liberty,  freedom  from  human 
tyranny  demanded  by  the  rule  of  God,  Theocracy 
placed  above  monarchy.  There  was  great  faith  in 
God,  not  so  much  faith  in  man.  But  the  democratic 
movement  was  the  assertion  of  the  worth  and  right 
of  the  individual  and  soon  protested  against  hard  and 
fast  lines  in  creed  and  church  as  well  as  in  govern- 
ments. And  to  this  must  be  added  the  idealism  of 
German  philosophy,  that  in  the  serious  and  spiritual 
mind  of  New  England  flowered  into  the  transcen- 
dentahsm  of  Concord  and  the  Brook  Farm.  Here 
you  have  reasons  enough  for  the  rapid  modification 
of  the  older  theology  and  the  growth  of  so-called 
liberal  religion.  In  England  the  Unitarians  were 
largely  the  outgrowth  of  the  Presbyterians;  in  New 
England,  of  the  Congregationalists ;  in  England  they 
were  frankly  Socinian,  in  New  England  mostly  Arian 
and  not  as  yet  ready  to  accept  the  Unitarian  name. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  majority 
of  the  clergy  of  New  England  had  accepted  the  newer 
views,  though  the  fellowship  of  the  churches  had  not 
yet  been  broken.  The  religious  life  of  the  time  is 
thus  described  by  the  biographer  of  Theodore  Parker: 
**  The  doctrines  of  the  Puritan  theology  had  lost  their 
hold  on  an  unimaginative  people;  and  with  them  the 
fervors  of  the  evangelical  spirit  had  declined.  .  .  . 
Churches  were  closed  to  Whitefield  before  Parker  was 
born.  The  seats  of  culture  dreaded  the  influence  of 
the  famous  preacher  of  revivals;  heads  of  families 
were  commonly  church  members,  the  younger  people 


72  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

seldom;  family  prayers  were  infrequent;  grace  before 
meat  was  unusual;  the  clergyman  was  respected  as  a 
man  of  education;  the  Sabbath  was  observed  punctu- 
ally; the  Bible  was  read;  but  the  soul  of  the  Protes- 
tant faith  had  fled." 

The  Unitarian  controversy  that  followed  revived 
the  evangelical  spirit  and  put  an  earnest  soul  under 
the  formality  of  liberal  thought. 

Channing  was  the  chief  personal  force  in  the  Uni- 
tarian development.  Though  never  a  radical  Uni- 
tarian and  for  a  long  time  holding  to  many  evangel- 
ical doctrines,  it  was  his  famous  Baltimore  sermon 
that  crystallized  the  elements  of  thought  widely  dif- 
fused into  a  definite  Unitarian  faith.  Though  never 
a  partisan,  and  willing  to  fellowship  a  good  life  of 
any  creed  and  church,  it  was  his  action  that  influ- 
enced the  forming  of  the  first  Unitarian  Association. 
By  his  rare  and  beautiful  personality,  by  his  noble 
thought  and  persuasive  manner,  he  gave  distinction 
to  the  new  movement  and  was  an  inspiration  to 
younger  men. 


The  early  forces  that  turned  Channing's  thought  in 
the  liberal  way  are  not  very  hard  to  find.  His  boy- 
hood was  passed  in  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  under 
orthodox  teachings  but  in  a  spirit  of  charity  and 
breadth  characteristic  of  the  community  from  the  time 
of  Roger  Williams.  The  teachers  of  his  boyhood 
were  Ezra  Stiles,  afterwards  President  of  Yale,  noted 
for  his  comprehensive  spirit,  and  Dr.  Hopkins,  the 
hero  of  "  The  Minister's  Wooing,"  whose  doctrine 
of  virtue  as  disinterested  benevolence  gave  his  name 
to  a  school  of  thought.     With  such  masters  Channing 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  73 

might  have  developed  and  glorified  the  old  orthodoxy 
save  for  other  influences  that  gave  a  distinct  trend 
to  his  life. 

He  was  a  young  idealist,  with  a  passion  for  good- 
ness and  a  tender  heart  that  would  not  crush  "  the 
meanest  insect  that  crawls,"  to  whom  the  finding  of  a 
bird's  nest  with  the  little  ones  killed  was  a  veritable 
tragedy.  He  thus  refers  to  the  influence  of  the  sea- 
shore upon  his  childhood :  **  No  spot  on  earth  has 
helped  to  form  me  so  much  as  that  beach.  There  I 
lifted  up  my  voice  in  praise  amidst  the  tempest. 
There,  softened  by  beauty,  I  poured  my  thanksgiving 
and  contrite  confessions.  There,  in  reverential  sym- 
pathy with  the  mighty  power  around  me,  I  became 
conscious  of  power  within.  There  struggling  thoughts 
and  emotions  broke  forth,  as  if  moved  to  utterance 
by  nature's  eloquence  of  the  winds  and  waves.  There 
began  a  happiness  surpassing  all  worldly  pleasures, 
all  gifts  of  fortune,  the  happiness  of  communing 
with  the  works  of  God."  Here  was  the  sense  of  God 
in  his  world  and  of  the  goodness  of  life  that  easily 
grew  into  the  proportions  of  his  creed  and  that  ab- 
sence of  the  sense  of  weakness  and  sinfulness  that 
makes  the  thought  of  the  Christ  welcome  to  most 
serious  minds. 

An  incident  of  his  boyhood  reveals  his  nature  and 
gives  a  strong  trend  to  his  beliefs.  The  father  had 
taken  the  boy  with  him  in  his  chaise  to  hear  a  famous 
preacher  at  some  distance.  The  sermon  was  full  of 
vivid  descriptions  of  man's  fallen  state  and  the  awful 
penalties  to  be  visited  upon  the  impenitent.  "  In  view 
of  the  speaker  a  curse  seemed  to  rest  upon  the  earth 
and  darkness  and  horror  to  veil  the  face  of  nature." 
The  boy's  mind  was  terribly  impressed  and  he  felt 


74  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

that  all  who  heard  the  preacher  must  have  similar 
impressions.  His  father's  word  to  a  friend  on  leav- 
ing the  church,  "  Sound  doctrine,  sir,"  only  deepened 
his  impression.  *'  It  is  all  true,  then,"  he  thought, 
and  the  boy's  heart  became  like  lead.  He  tried  to 
speak  to  his  father  and  could  not.  The  father's 
silence  made  the  boy  think  that  the  father  too  was 
brooding  over  these  terrible  things.  But  when  at  last 
the  father  began  to  whistle,  the  boy  received  a  great 
moral  shock.  And  worse  still,  when  the  father  got 
home,  he  put  on  his  slippers  and  settled  down  into 
an  easy  chair  before  the  open  fire,  the  very  sight  of 
which  should  have  made  him  feel  uncomfortable,  and 
was  soon  lost  in  his  paper  as  though  nothing  had 
happened.  At  once  the  boy  reasoned,  **  Could  what 
he  had  heard  be  true  ?  No ;  his  father  did  not  believe 
it;  people  did  not  believe  it.  It  was  not  true."  And 
this  incident  gave  a  permanent  direction  to  his  thought. 
One  other  fact  of  his  youth  had  direct  influence 
upon  his  career.  His  father,  a  lawyer  and  public 
man,  was  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  and  as  a  loyal 
alumnus  intended  to  have  his  son  go  to  the  same 
college.  But  the  father's  sudden  death  placed  the 
education  of  the  son  largely  under  the  influence  of 
his  mother's  family  who  were  all  associated  with 
Harvard.  So  Harvard  became  his  Alma  Mater,  and 
his  education  strengthened  the  growth  of  liberal  ideas 
already  begun.  His  latest  biographer,  Mr.  Chadwick, 
can  not  refrain  from  imagining  the  change  in  the 
religious  condition  of  New  England  had  young  Chan- 
ning  gone  to  Princeton  and  become  subject  to  its  con- 
servative influence. 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  75 


It  is  not  hard  to  trace  the  growth  and  expression 
of  Channing's  thought.  The  young  ideaHst  found 
kindred  suggestions  in  his  reading  and  in  his  work. 
He  read  Hutcheson  under  the  willows  at  Cambridge 
and  caught  the  vision  of  the  *'  dignity  of  human 
nature,"  henceforth  the  fountain  light  of  all  his  seeing. 
He  read  Adam  Ferguson's  Essay  on  Civil  Society 
and  caught  the  enthusiasm  for  social  progress  and  the 
idea  of  moral  perfection.  His  experience  as  a  teacher 
in  Richmond,  Virginia,  his  knowledge  of  the  evils 
of  slavery  beneath  the  graces  of  a  slave-holding  so- 
ciety, heightened  his  moral  earnestness,  his  passion 
for  moral  goodness. 

Somewhat  uncertain  in  his  view  at  first,  his  first 
sermons  are  evangelical  in  spirit,  with  more  than  one 
Puritan  note.  He  was  welcome  in  all  pulpits,  and  no 
party  could  say,  *'  He  is  one  of  us.''  And  yet  from 
the  early  sermons  one  can  gather  passages  that  are 
prophetic  of  his  full  message. 

From  the  first  he  dwelt  upon  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  which  afterwards  became  his  mastering  thought. 
"  No  character  could  bring  God  so  nigh  as  this  of  the 
Father.  I  fear  it  has  been  the  influence  of  many 
speculations  of  ingenious  men  on  the  Divine  char- 
acter to  divest  God  of  the  paternal  tenderness  which 
is  of  all  views  most  suited  to  touch  the  heart." 

His  deflection  from  the  traditional  view  of  the 
Atonement,  as  a  means  of  changing  God,  is  seen  at 
once :  **  Mercy  is  an  essential  attribute  of  God,  not 
an  affection  produced  in  Him  by  a  foreign  cause. 
His  blessings  are  free,  bestowed  from  a  real  love  of 
His  creatures,  not  purchased  from  Him  and  bestowed 


76  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

by  another  on  those  whose  welfare  He  disregards." 
And  in  the  early  years  rose  clear  and  high  the  doc- 
trine that  religion  is  a  means  of  perfection. 

**  Do  you  ask  in  what  this  perfection  consists  ?  I 
answer  in  knowledge,  in  love,  and  in  activity.  The 
mind  devoted  to  these  ends  is  as  happy  as  it  is  per- 
fect. Its  happiness  partakes  of  the  purity  and  seren- 
ity of  the  divine  felicity.  Now  this  I  conceive  is 
the  end  of  God,  to  bring  His  rational  offspring  to 
this  perfect  and  blessed  state,  to  give  them  the  widest, 
clearest,  and  brightest  views,  to  give  them  the  strong- 
est, purest,  most  disinterested  love,  and  to  form  them 
to  the  most  vigorous  and  efficient  exertion  of  all  their 
powers  in  the  promotion  of  the  best  designs." 

The  development  of  his  distinctive  ideas,  what  has 
often  been  termed  by  his  followers  as  his  prophetic 
work,  is  marked  by  his  growing  distrust  of  theological 
precision,  emphasis  on  character  more  than  on  creed, 
and  increasing  prominence  to  faith  in  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  dignity  of  human  nature. 

However,  it  was  not  until  Channing  was  35  years 
old  and  had  been  preaching  more  than  twelve  years 
that  he  was  brought  to  take  a  definite  position  as 
a  Unitarian  leader.  This  was  due  to  an  article  in 
The  Panoplist  by  Jeremiah  Evarts  (father  of  Senator 
Evarts)  denying  the  name  Christian  and  Christian 
fellowship  to  all  Unitarians.  In  answer  to  this  Chan- 
ning put  all  the  passion  of  his  soul  into  a  plea  for  a 
ministry  of  reconciliation.  "  For  myself  the  Universe 
would  not  tempt  me  to  bear  a  part  in  this  work  of 
dividing  Christ's  Church  and  of  denouncing  his  fol- 
lowers. If  there  be  an  act,  which  above  all  others, 
is  a  transgression  of  Christian  law,  it  is  this."  And 
he   speaks   of   the   "  immeasurable   distance "   that   is 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  ^J 

supposed  to  divide  Unitarians  from  Trinitarians  as 
little  more  than  a  "  mist  of  obscure  phraseology."  In 
one  of  the  letters  of  his  later  life  he  is  quoted  as  say- 
ing :  "  I  am  more  and  more  inclined  to  believe  in  the 
simple  humanity  of  Jesus."  But  he  never  preached 
a  mere  human  Jesus.  His  doctrine  is  hard  to  distin- 
guish from  a  progressive  orthodoxy  of  to-day :  *'  We 
believe  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  most  glorious  dis- 
play, expression,  and  representative  of  God  to  man- 
kind, so  that  in  seeing  him  we  see  and  know  the  in- 
visible Father ;  so  that,  when  Christ  came,  God  visited 
the  world  and  dwelt  among  men  more  conspicuously 
than  at  any  other  period."  Channing  has  a  volume  of 
sermons  called  **  The  Perfect  Life  "  and  no  word  was 
on  his  lips  oftener  than  this:  "I  believe  that  Chris- 
tianity has  one  great  principle  which  is  central,  around 
which  all  its  truths  gather,  and  which  constitute  it  the 
glorious  gospel  of  the  Blessed  God:  it  is  the  doctrine 
that  God  purposes,  in  His  unbounded  Fatherly  love,  to 
perfect  the  human  soul;  to  purify  it  from  all  sin; 
to  fill  it  with  His  own  spirit ;  to  unfold  it  forever." 

3 

The  Preacher 

Channing  was  a  very  small,  frail  man,  his  early 
vigor  seriously  impaired  by  bad  habits  of  work  and 
ascetic  practices.  He  gained  a  more  wholesome  view 
of  life  but  never  regained  his  early  vigor.  He  always 
gave  the  impression  of  physical  weakness.  When  he 
once  told  his "  friend  Dr.  Furness  that  he  couldn't 
strike  a  man,  Dr.  Furness  could  not  help  wondering 
if  the  man  would  feel  it  if  he  did. 

But  the  slight  physique  was  always  covered  with 


78  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

an  ample  pulpit  gown  and  his  neck  swathed  in  the 
wonderful  neck  cloth  of  the  day  —  so  that  as  in  the 
case  of  William  Cullen  Bryant  with  his  Roman  toga- 
like cloak,  the  audience  was  always  impressed  with 
the  presence  of  the  man.  Of  course  the  noble  head 
and  face,  the  richness  and  vitality  of  the  truth,  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  man,  and  the  voice  —  a  perfect 
instrument  of  the  thought  —  helped  men  to  forget 
everything  but  the  spiritual  and  vital  personality. 

*'  His  voice  —  ah,  that  wonderful  voice  —  wonder- 
ful not  for  the  music  of  its  tones,  but  for  its  extraor- 
dinary power  of  expression.  Whether  from  the  deli- 
cacy of  the  vocal  organ  or  from  bodily  weakness,  I 
do  not  know,  it  was  flexible  to  tremulousness.  When 
he  began  to  discourse,  it  ran  up  and  down,  even  in  the 
articulation  of  a  single  polysyllabic  word,  in  so  strange 
a  fashion  that  they  who  heard  him  for  the  first  time 
could  not  anticipate  its  effect  —  how,  before  it  ceased, 
that  voice  would  thrill  them  to  the  inmost.  I  can  not 
liken  it  to  anything  but  a  huge  sail,  flapping  about  at 
first  at  random,  but  soon  taking  the  wind,  swelling  out 
most  majestically,  as  Sidney  Smith  said  of  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  that  *  when  the  spirit  came  upon  him,  he 
spread  his  enormous  canvas,  and  launched  into  a  wide 
sea  of  eloquence.' "  His  reading  of  scripture  and 
hymns  was  equally  impitssive.  *'  He  made  single 
words  so  big  with  meaning  that  could  the  eye  have 
reproduced  them,  they  would  have  covered  the  side 
wall  of  the  church.  He  impressed  the  reality  of  his 
message  and  its  importance  for  the  lives  of  men. 
There  was  no  question  about  the  sincerity  of  the  man 
in  his  preaching.  He  spoke  his  inmost  soul  in  ser- 
mon and  hymn  and  prayer.  Preaching  was  the  great 
action   of  his   life''    (Dewey).     One   can  easily  find 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  79 

fault  with  Channing's  style  from  present  taste.  It  has 
something  of  the  ''  smooth,  watery,  flow  of  words,'* 
and  even  Lord  Brougham's  criticism  is  not  wholly 
wide  of  the  mark,  **flagrant  example  of  euphuistic 
prettiness." 

We  must  remember  that  Channing  was  the  prime 
mover  in  the  new  intellectual  regime.  He  tried  to  do 
by  his  sermons  and  lectures  what  his  almost  equally 
famous  brother  did  in  the  class  room  of  Harvard  — 
create  an  intellectual  taste  and  standard.  He  was 
ever  the  conscious  stylist  in  his  writings.  He  thought 
too  much  of  how  it  was  done.  But  if  you  compare 
his  style  with  contemporary  writing  —  with  the 
speeches  and  lectures  of  Webster  and  Choate,  Win- 
throp  and  Everett  —  you  must  admit  that  he  was  the 
peer  of  the  best  of  them.  It  was  the  time  when  the 
full,  mellifluous,  elaborate  style  was  in  vogue  —  the 
Latinized  English  of  Johnson  and  Burke  —  rather 
than  the  nervous,  direct,  simple  English  of  the  early 
Puritan  writers,  or  the  business  speech  of  our  day. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  his  sermons  are  rather 
hard  reading  now,  but  not  as  much  so  as  contem- 
porary sermons.  He  wanted  to  be  real  and  often 
threw  aside  the  classical  garb  and  spoke  with  the 
direct,  homely,  idiom  that  anticipated  Emerson  and 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  Abraham  Lincoln. 

4 

His  Message  and  Its  Influence 

I  have  already  more  than  suggested  the  message  of 
Channing.  The  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Sonship  of 
Man,  and  the  perfection  of  human  life  to  be  reached 
by  the  imitation  of  Jesus.     How  do  we  know  God? 


8o  THE  PULPIT  AJ^D  AMERICAN  LIFE 

By  striving  after  the  qualities  we  think  like  God. 
"  How  do  we  understand  the  goodness  of  God  but 
by  the  principle  of  love  implanted  in  the  human  breast? 
Who  can  understand  the  strength,  purity,  fullness  and 
extent  of  divine  philanthropy,  but  he  in  whom  selfish- 
ness has  been  swallowed  up  in  love  ?  " 

As  I  have  said,  Channing  was  an  idealist.  He 
dwelt  not  in  the  world  of  men  but  in  the  world  of 
ideas.  His  letters  and  his  conversation  were  unevent- 
ful and  impersonal.  He  had  a  vision  of  truth  —  like 
the  spiritual  worth  of  man,  and  this  vision  he  kept 
before  his  mind  by  continued  and  rapt  meditation, 
unmodified  by  other  ideas  or  the  facts  of  life.  So 
while  he  denounced  the  evils  of  society,  was  a  true 
reformer,  he  was  a  stubborn  idealist,  and  was  not 
specially  conscious  of  the  sinfulness  of  men.  So  the 
Atonement  does  not  appear  in  his  preaching,  but  he 
has  the  highest  word  for  the  character  and  claim  of 
Christ.  '*  The  Gospels  must  be  true ;  they  were  drawn 
from  a  living  original;  they  were  founded  on  reality. 
The  character  of  Jesus  is  not  a  fiction;  he  was  what 
he  claimed  to  be,  and  what  his  followers  attested. 
Nor  is  this  all.  Jesus  not  only  was,  he  is  still  the  Son 
of  God,  the  Saviour  of  the  World.  He  exists  now; 
he  has  entered  that  heaven  to  which  he  always  looked 
forward  on  earth.  There  he  lives  and  reigns.  With 
a  clear,  calm  faith,  I  see  him  in  that  state  of  glory; 
and  I  confidently  expect  at  no  distant  period  to  see 
him  face  to  face.  Let  us  then  by  imitation  of  his 
virtues,  and  obedience  to  his  word  prepare  ourselves 
to  join  him  in  those  pure  mansions,  where  he  is  sur- 
rounding himself  with  the  good  and  pure  of  our 
race,  and  will  communicate  to  them  forever  his  own 
spirit,  power  and  joy."     Here  we  have  his  loftiest 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  8l 

and  most  characteristic  note  —  in  the  appeal  to  imita- 
tion. The  sermon  on  "  The  Imitableness  of  Christ's 
Character  "  is  perhaps  as  noble  as  he  ever  preached. 
*'  Do  not  imagine  that  any  faith  or  love  towards  Jesus 
can  avail  you  but  that  which  quickens  you  to  conform 
yourselves  to  his  spotless  purity  and  unconquerable 
rectitude.  For  all  of  us  he  died,  to  leave  us  an  ex- 
ample that  we  should  follow  his  steps.  By  earnest 
purpose,  by  self -conflict,  by  watching  and  prayer,  by 
faith  in  the  Christian  promises,  by  those  heavenly  aids 
and  illuminations  which  he  that  seeketh  shall  find, 
we  may  all  unite  ourselves  in  living  bonds  to  Christ 
—  may  love  as  he  loved,  may  act  from  his  principles, 
may  suffer  from  his  constancy,  may  enter  into  his 
purposes,  may  sympathize  with  his  self-devotion  to 
the  cause  of  God  and  mankind,  and,  by  likeness  of 
spirit,  may  prepare  ounselves  to  meet  him  as  our  ever- 
lasting friend." 

An  appreciative  and  tolerant  critic  can  easily  find 
the  limitation  and  weakness  of   Channing's  message. 

He  was  completely  under  the  sway  of  a  few  leading 
ideas.  He  had  an  acute  self-consciousness,  fostered 
by  his  isolated  habits  and  the  deference  paid  to  him 
as  a  master  mind.  And  so  he  spoke  as  if  he  enjoyed 
a  special  revelation.  His  opinions  are  announced  as 
absolute  truths.  He  tried  to  make  everything  simple 
and  rational  —  and  the  standard  is  of  his  own  reason. 
Even  his  friendly  biographer  recognizes  the  weakness 
as  applied  to  the  vast  materials  of  the  Scripture. 
**  The  vice  of  the  method  was  that  it  imposed  common 
sense  on  every "  Biblical  writer  —  a  rule  of  thumb  for 
agonies  and  exaltations  of  the  spirit." 

And  a  Jewish  Rabbi  keenly  says :  **  Though  he 
always  meant  to  speak  as  a  disciple,  he  in  truth  spoke 


S2  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

as  a  master."  He  saw  only  what  would  satisfy  his 
own  ideal.  Everything  was  not  so  simple  as  he 
thought  it  was.  More  humility  before  the  mystery  of 
Godliness  would  have  helped  him  to  understand  more 
and  to  walk  more  reverently. 

I  do  not  think  it  always  fair  to  judge  a  man  by 
the  teachings  of  those  who  call  themselves  his  dis- 
ciples. But  at  least  we  see  in  them  to  what  lengths 
the  interpretation  or  misinterpretation  of  the  master 
may  be  carried.  No  doubt  in  the  freer  and  calmer 
air  of  to-day  his  protest  to  received  opinion  would 
not  have  gone  so  far  and  he  would  have  lived  and 
died  in  the  fellowship  of  the  evangelical  church. 

He  did  a  work  that  had  to  be  done  in  bringing 
Christ  down  from  a  theological  height  to  dwell  with 
men  —  to  make  the  Lord  and  Master  of  Mankind  an 
elder  brother  in  fact.  And  we  must  bless  him  for 
teaching  the  spiritual  capacity  of  man  and  for  show- 
ing the  adaptation  of  the  Gospel  to  the  development 
of  the  largest,  noblest  manhood.  His  perfect  life  and 
Henry  Drummond's  ideal  life  are  the  same.  But  he 
failed  in  the  redemptive  message  of  the  Gospel,  that 
the  mystery  of  the  Divine  life  of  love  and  power  has 
been  brought  to  men  to  lift  them  up. 

The  sense  of  falling  short  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  person  of  Jesus  has  been  frankly  expressed  by  the 
letter  of  Dr.  James  Martineau,  the  eminent  leader  of 
English  Unitarians :  **  Your  experience  confirms  my 
growing  surmise  that  the  mission  which  had  been  con- 
signed to  us  by  our  history  is  likely  to  pass  to  the 
Congregationalists  in  England  and  the  Presbyterians 
in  Scotland.  Their  escape  from  the  old  orthodox 
scheme  is  better  than  ours.  With  us,  insistence  upon 
the  simple  humanity  of  Jesus  has  come  to  mean  the 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  83 

limitation  of  all  divineness  to  the  Father,  leaving  man 
a  mere  item  of  creaturely  existence  under  laws  of 
natural  necessity. 

**  With  them  the  transfer  of  emphasis  from  the 
Atonement  to  the  Incarnation  means  the  retention  of 
a  divine  essence  in  Christ,  as  the  head  and  type  of 
humanity  in  its  realized  idea;  so  that  man  and  life- 
are  lifted  into  kinship  with  God,  instead  of  what  had 
been  God  being  reduced  to  the  scale  of  mere  nature, 

*'  The  union  of  the  two  natures  in  Christ  resolves 
itself  into  their  union  in  man  and  links  heaven  and 
earth  in  relations  of  a  common  spirituality. 

**  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the  divineness  of  existence, 
instead  of  being  driven  off  into  the  heights  beyond 
life,  is  there  brought  down  into  the  deeps  within  it, 
and  diffuses  there  a  multitude  of  sanctities  that  would 
else  have  been  secularized. 

'*  Hence  the  feeling  of  reverence,  the  habits  of  piety, 
the  aspirations  of  faith,  the  hopes  of  immortality,  the 
devoutness  of  duty,  which  have  so  much  lost  their 
hold  upon  our  people,  remain  real  powers  among  the 
liberalized  orthodox,  and  enable  them  to  carry  their 
appeal  home  to  the  hearts  of  men  in  a  way  the  secret 
of  which  has  escaped  from  us." 

Channing's  doctrine  of  the  worth  of  human  nature 
and  the  purpose  of  Christianity  to  make  that  nature 
perfect  led  him  to  apply  the  Gospel  to  every  concern 
of  man,  to  every  institution  of  society.  And  here 
is  where  his  work  is  the  freest  from  alloy.  We  must 
be  grateful  for  it.  The  fullness  of  the  kingdom  is 
manifestly  nearer  because  of  it.  No  man  taught  the 
ethics  of  the  Gospel  better  than  he  did.  And  there 
was  need,  when  human  slavery  was  the  legal  and 
cherished  institution  of  the  two  most  Christian  nations 


84  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

of  the  world.  He  studied  the  questions  of  labor  and 
poverty  and  spoke  with  many  anticipations  of  modern 
sociology.  He  had  the  social  consciousness  —  not 
even  yet  developed  in  all  ministers. 

He  discussed  the  evils  of  intemperance  with  a  clear- 
ness and  fearlessness  never  surpassed,  and  with  a 
breadth  of  view,  showing  the  relation  of  industrial 
questions  and  those  of  recreation  to  intemperance  and 
its  cure,  that  after  two  generations  of  experiments, 
the  wisest  students  of  society  are  now  considering. 

With  his  pure  vision  he  saw  the  terrible  evils  of 
slavery,  and  he  did  not  forbear  —  but  cried  aloud,  but 
he  did  not  satisfy  either  party.  He  lived  in  ideals 
rather  than  in  actions.  He  saw  the  other  side  too  well 
to  be  a  practical  reformer.  He  hesitated  until  he 
could  also  reach  the  ideal  action. 

*'  Channing's  anti-slavery  course  had  the  defects  of 
his  qualities,  if  they  were  defects.  To  hear  the  other 
side  was  as  necessary  for  him,  as  to  hear  one  side  only 
is  for  the  majority  of  men.  To  consider  it  again  was 
equally  necessary.  His  was  the  Hamlet  disposition, 
rightly  understood  —  a  holding  back  from  action  in 
the  hope  of  reaching  its  ideal  form.  Hence  he  was 
slower  than  some  others  in  the  adoption  of  radical 
measures.  But  as  compared  with  the  average  temper 
of  the  community  of  his  co-religionists,  of  his  people, 
he  was  so  free  and  bold  that  it  scandalized  the  social 
and  religious  Boston  of  his  time.  Good  people  won- 
dered what  he  would  do  next.  So,  then,  considering 
his  shrinking  delicacy  of  form  and  mind,  his  distaste 
for  all  rough  contact,  his  holy  fear  of  doing  injustice 
to  any  person,  or  another's  thought,  his  conservative 
environment,  and  the  sacrifice  of  reputation,  honor, 
and  affection  entailed  by  his  anti-slavery  course,   it 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  85 

may  be  doubted  whether  any  of  his  contemporaries 
did  out  his  duty  in  a  more  steadily,  heroic  fashion, 
or  at  a  heavier  cost/'  ^ 

How  echoes  yet  each  western  hill 

And  vale  with  Channing's  dying  word ! 

How  are  the  hearts  of  freedom  still 

By  that  great  warning  stirred  !  —  Whittier. 

1  Chadwick's  "  Life  of  Channing,"  294. 


V 

HORACE  BUSH  NELL 

There  is  no  more  striking  example  in  the  American 
pulpit  of  **  Truth  through  personality  "  than  Horace 
Bushnell.  His  nature  and  experience,  his  person- 
ality, gave  him  his  truth,  colored  its  form,  and  gave 
power  to  every  expression  of  it.  The  man  was  always 
present.  And  yet  the  man  loved  truth  supremely. 
He  writes  among  his  last  words  "  that  the  only  ground 
of  satisfaction  that  he  knew  was  that  he  loved  truth, 
and  had  tried  to  find  it  out.'' 

His  nature,  the  outer  and  inner  experience  of  his 
life,  are  writ  large  in  letters  and  books  and  sermons. 
It  has  been  said  that  his  sermons  to  his  own  people  — 
such  sermons  as  you  find  in  the  volume  *'  Sermons 
for  the  New  Life" — are  great  Gospel  messages  and 
reveal  few  traces  of  the  original  and  seer-like  visions 
and  speculations  that  characterize  his  occasional  ad- 
dresses and  made  them  critical  days  for  himself  and 
the  New  England  church.  But  I  can  not  agreed  with 
the  statement.     It  seems  to  me  a  superficial  estimate. 

He  was  always  Horace  Bushnell  and  the  elements 
of  power  in  his  preaching  were  the  very  things  that  he 
had  felt  more  profoundly  than  other  men,  or  thought 
that  he  saw  more  clearly.  I  wish  to  speak  about  the 
preacher  and  not  the  theologian.  Yet  vitality  and 
sincerity  are  such  unvarying  notes  —  everything  that 

86 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  87 

he  said  was  so  connected  with  everything  that  he  was, 
that  to  write  truly  of  the  preacher,  one  ought  to  know 
fully  the  thinker. 

It  is  an  inspiring  thought  that  such  a  man,  so  richly 
endowed,  so  influential  in  the  higher  life  of  our  na- 
tion, could  spring  from  the  simple  and  bare  life  of  a 
New  England  farm.  It  was  the  life  of  the  farm  that 
helped  in  no  small  part  to  make  him  what  he  was.  He 
is  essentially  an  out  of  doors  man.  He  has  the  free- 
dom of  the  fields  and  in  his  rhythmical  speech  there 
is  something  of  the  music  of  the  streams  he  loved. 
He  is  redolent  of  fields  and  forest,  and  never  has  the 
odor  of  musty  books.  It  sharpened  and  gave  large 
play  for  the  natural  inquisitiveness  of  the  youth.  He 
knew  every  wood  note,  every  tree  in  the  forest,  and 
the  curious  and  beautiful  life  that  grew  along  his  na- 
tive streams.  This  interest  in  nature  he  never  lost. 
While  kept  by  his  many  labors  amid  physical  weakness 
from  pursuing  any  scientific  study,  he  followed  the 
results  of  such  study  with  intelligent  interest.  With 
all  his  mystic  visions,  he  kept  his  feet  firmly  on  the 
earth.  Nature  might  almost  be  called  the  key  to  his 
thought.  He  kept  his  feet  on  the  earth  and  from  this 
solid  base  he  tried  to  view  the  stars.  He  reasoned 
from  the  world  of  sense  and  spirit  that  he  knew  to 
the  higher  realm  where  imagination  must  lead  the 
way.  His  desire  was  to  find  the  divine  unity,  to  har- 
monize all  ideas  of  God  and  Redemption  with  the 
nature  of  things  —  to  make  men  feel  that  there  was 
one  world,  one  law,  one  love,  and  one  **  far  off  divine 
event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moved."  His 
thought  was  governed  by  the  naturalness  of  the  proc- 
esses of  grace.  "  His  religious  impressions  came  along 
the  path  of  nature,  in  the  fields  and  pastures,  and  so 


88  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

coming  they  were  without  fear  or  sense  of  wrong,  but 
full  of  the  divine  beauty  and  majesty.'*  ^ 

The  solitary  life  of  the  country  made  the  youth 
thoughtful,  meditating  much  upon  his  own  nature,  the 
truths  of  religion  and  the  impressions  upon  his  soul 
of  the  spiritual  meaning  and  beauty  of  the  world.  He 
learned  to  feel  with  Wordsworth  that  the  forms  and 
forces  that  he  daily  saw  and  felt  should  have  some 
message  and  help  for  the  soul.  He  had  a  simple  and 
natural  piety  in  his  home,  but  the  first  strong  sense  of 
God  came  to  him  from  nature,  and  he  knelt  in  the 
shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  the  field  to  pour  out  his  soul 
to  the  Eternal  One. 

.  .  .  And  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man: 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,   that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all. 

He  loved  the  beautiful  scenes  of  his  youth  and  in 
later  years  returned  to  them  with  a  boy's  eagerness, 
and  nourished  his  faith  by  them,  and  calmed  the  tumult 
of  soul  and  had  clearer  views  of  truth.  He  loved  the 
world  for  its  light  and  beauty,  but  it  was  the  message 
to  the  soul  that  he  most  cared  for.  He  had  a  summer 
in  Switzerland  and  never  enjoyed  so  much  in  so  short 
a  time ;  but  he  is  frank  to  say  that  **  none  of  these 
things  move  me  unless  when  I  connect  the  visible  with 

1  "  Life  of  Bushnell,"  by  T.  T.  Munger. 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  89 

the  invisible,  and  see  in  the  forms  of  grandeur  around 
me  types  of  that  tremendous  Being  who  inhabits  and 
glorifies  all."  It  was  faith  that  gave  him  eyes,  but 
the  power  of  vision  is  connected  with  his  love  of  na- 
ture. 

He  grew  sturdy  and  original  and  independent  by 
his  youth  in  the  country,  as  a  tree  in  the  open  field, 
unsupported  and  unaided  by  others  has  room  for 
stronger  growth  and  by  very  exposure  to  storm  and 
sun  draws  deeper  life  from  the  soil  and  the  air.  From 
early  years  he  was  conscious  of  power  —  awakened 
first  in  the  country  school  house,  and  cherished  by  dis- 
cussions in  theology  and  by  the  debating  club;  but  he 
declined  the  ofifer  of  a  college  training  as  a  world  not 
meant  for  him,  and  as  beyond  the  means  of  his  fam- 
ily. He  gave  his  young  manhood  to  the  farm,  apply- 
ing his  fertile  and  original  mind  to  its  work,  plant- 
ing and  sowing  and  building  walls  that  still  stand  so 
perfect  was  their  workmanship,  trying  to  know  his 
neighborhood,  its  soil  and  drainage  and  climate  and 
productions  before  the  day  of  scientific  agriculture. 

So  he  was  a  man  grown,  physically  and  mentally, 
before  he  entered  college.  And  when  he  began  his 
studies  at  Yale  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  it  was  with 
a  nature  that  had  already  taken  its  distinctive  steps, 
gained  its  distinguishing  marks.  So  college  training 
imposed  nothing  upon  him  of  social  or  mental  habit; 
it  did  not  fashion  him  in  the  molds  of  other  men's 
thought  or  custom,  but  simply  quickened  and  matured 
his  native  vigor. 

And  this  was  Horace  Bushnell  all  through  his  life. 
He  trusted  the  processes  of  his  own  mind,  he  believed 
in  the  messages  of  God  to  his  soul.  He  never  asked 
what  other  people  thought  or  whether  his  views  would 


90  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

find  acceptance  with  the  majority  of  the  Church.  It 
was  enough  that  this  seemed  truth  to  him.  He  fol- 
lowed it,  though  it  led  from  the  beaten  path  of  men 
to  unknown  ways.  A  more  independent  and  loyal 
soul  never  lived.  And  you  can  see  how  his  course 
grew  out  of  his  nature,  developed  and  strengthened 
by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  his  youth. 

He  was  too  independent  of  others,  sometimes  fail- 
ing to  have  the  proper  perspective  to  his  thinking  that 
comes  from  familiarity  with  the  history  of  doctrine. 
He  had  little  respect  for  great  libraries,  and  held  that 
the  burning  of  the  Alexandrian  library  was  an  un- 
doubted blessing  to  the  race.  He  was  wanting  in  rev- 
erence for  human  authority,  but  not  wanting  in  the 
reverence  of  faith. 

In  the  intense  and  often  bitter  discussions  that  gath- 
ered about  him  for  a  score  of  years,  he  was  singularly 
unmoved,  not  only  because  he  had  gained  the  victory 
of  the  forgiving  spirit,  but  because  of  his  independ- 
ence of  human  opinion,  and  his  supreme  faith  in  the 
triumph  of  truth  at  last  —  whatever  that  might  be. 

He  was  by  nature  an  explorer.  His  life  shows  it, 
and  even  in  the  smallest  things.  As  a  boy  he  knew 
all  the  woods  and  streams,  and  had  gone  to  the  sum- 
mits of  the  highest  hills.  He  never  passed  through 
a  country  without  mapping  it  all  out  in  his  own  mind. 
During  a  vacation  in  California  for  his  health,  he  ex- 
plored no  less  than  half  a  dozen  sites  for  the  proposed 
University  of  California,  and  decided  the  proper  route 
for  a  transcontinental  railroad  through  the  Sierras. 
When  an  invalid  with  but  a  single  lung,  followed  by 
his  young  friend,  Jos.  Twitchell,  he  made  a  new  and 
better  trail  to  the  summit  of  Mt.  Marcy  in  the  Adiron- 
dacks.     He   was   always   cutting  new  paths   through 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  9^ 

forests  and  climbing  to  the  tops  of  the  highest  moun- 
tains. He  was  ever  getting  up  and  beyond.  He  was 
never  content  with  the  old,  he  must  have  the  new,  and 
it  was  to  be  expected  that  with  such  a  nature  the  new 
was  usually  the  better.  The  sad  age  never  came  to 
him  when 

...  a  flower  is  just  a  flower: 
Man,  bird,  beast  are  but  beast,  bird,  man  — 
Simply  themselves,  uncinct  by  dower 
Of  dyes  which,  when  life's  day  began. 
Round  each  in  glory  ran,  .  .  . 

He  was  an  explorer,  an  experimenter  in  the  regions 
of  spiritual  life  as  well  as  in  the  physical.  It  was  the 
indomitable  bent  of  his  nature.  And  whether  we  can 
follow  the  leadings  of  such  men  or  not,  we  can  have 
no  doubt  that  God  makes  great  use  of  them  in  making 
others  dissatisfied  with  easy  and  conventional  faith 
and  leading  to  deeper  realities. 

In  his  own  words  Horace  Bushnell  has  given  us  an 
unconscious  portrait  of  himself :  **  There  are  some 
of  all  ages  —  a  holy  few  whose  lives  have  been  pre- 
served to  us  in  writing  and  tradition,  and  who  thus 
live  among  us  still  as  known  causes,  who  are  not  si- 
lent, whose  names  and  works  and  Christian  character 
are  ever  freshened  and  made  more  vigorous  by  the 
lapse  of  time.  God  has  saved  these  elect  men  to  us 
by  means  of  written  language,  that  we  may  ever  have 
them  with  us,  and  look  to  them  as  our  lights  of  love 
and  truth.  They  were  God's  experimenters,  I  may 
say,  in  all  their  struggles  and  trials  and  works,  and  so 
God's  witnesses;  and  therefore  it  is  expected  that  we 
shall  go  naturally  to  them  for  help  and  life-direction, 
as  one  who  could  open  a  mine  will  seize  upon  the 


92  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

instructive  suggestions  of  an  experienced  miner. 
They  were  the  true  miners  of  faith,  and  we  may  go 
to  them  to  be  told  where  the  treasures  of  faith  do  lie, 
and  how  they  may  be  opened." 

We  must  go  a  step  farther,  and  the  most  important 
of  all,  if  we  would  touch  the  personality  of  this  man 
and  know  how  his  experience  spoke  in  his  word.  The 
theology  of  New  England  was  essentially  rationalism 
crystallized  into  dogmas.  That  is,  the  Fathers,  from 
Jonathan  Edwards  to  Nathaniel  Tayler,  had  used  their 
reason  as  the  instrument  of  spiritual  knowledge,  think- 
ing out  the  great  problems  of  God  and  man  and  the 
plan  of  salvation  and  the  procedure  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
with  an  awakened  soul,  and  had  put  these  into  formal 
and  supposedly  consistent  statement,  and  made  them 
the  creeds  of  the  churches  and  the  limits  of  thought 
and  life  in  religion. 

Horace  Bushnell,  the  child  of  a  Methodist  and  an 
Episcopalian,  was  nurtured  at  home  in  the  warm  at- 
mosphere of  Christian  love  and  never  passed  through 
the  orthodox  experience  of  deep  conviction,  and  the 
struggle  of  an  evil  heart  and  final  surrender  to  God. 
He  knew  nothing  of  this.  His  days  were  bound  each 
to  each  by  natural  piety.  This  beautiful  home  life 
speaks  in  his  volume  on  "  Christian  Nurture."  And 
as  a  lad  he  joined  the  Church  as  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  his  life.  As  his  mind  matured,  logic  and 
imagination  seemed  equally  dominant.  He  loved  argu- 
ment. He  put  the  logical  processes  first.  He  rea- 
soned out  the  chief  doctrines  of  Calvinism.  And  the 
whole  field  of  religion  seemed  plain  enough  to  him. 
And  in  this  settled  and  steady  faith  he  went  to  col- 
lege with  the  ministry  in  view.  Reason  was  the  great 
instrument  of  faith.     But  the  very  defender  of  faith 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  93 

was  its  betrayer.  New  studies  opened  a  broad  hori- 
zon. Experience  revealed  new  powers  of  his  nature 
with  which  he  had  not  reckoned.  Philosophic  ques- 
tions refused  to  be  stated  under  old  formulas.  Rea- 
son that  once  saw  so  straight  and  clear,  now  pain- 
fully groped,  and  finally  refused  to  be  the  guide  of 
faith.  Reason  left  him  in  doubt.  It  was  honest  doubt, 
the  failure  to  use  all  the  faculties  of  faith.  But 
through  it  all  he  maintained  his  sense  of  right,  keep- 
ing his  conscience  clear,  never  irreverent,  guarding 
against  leading  others  into  unbelief. 

Tennyson's  words  concerning  Arthur  Hallam  at 
once  come  to  mind  as  equally  true  of  young  Horace 
Bushnell : 

One  indeed  I  knew 
In  many  a  subtle  questions  versed, 
Who  touched  a  jarring  lyre  at  first, 
But  ever  strove  to  make  it  true: 
Perplext  in  faith,  but  pure  in  deeds. 
At  last  he  beat  his  music  out. 

Such  was  Horace  Bushnell  through  years  of  study 
and  teaching,  unable  to  bring  his  reason  to  accept  the 
truths  of  Christianity,  and  not  willing  to  break  with 
Christianity  —  leading  a  correct,  formal  and  unsatis- 
fying life. 

Great  religious  interest  was  felt  at  Yale.  Bushnell 
had  become  an  instructor.  He  could  honestly  take 
no  part  in  it.  And  yet  his  neutral  position,  as  a 
tutor  of  commanding  influence,  was  not  neutral,  and 
was  keeping  scores  of  young  men  from  faith.  His 
pride  of  intellect  was  humbled  before  this  sense  of 
fraternal  relation.  He  began  at  the  plain  standpoint 
of  conscience  and  duty  and  put  the  test  question  to 


94  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

his  own  heart :  **  Have  I  ever  consented  to  be,  and 
am  I  really  now,  in  the  right,  as  in  principle  and 
supreme  law;  to  live  for  it;  to  make  any  sacrifice  it 
will  cost  me;  to  believe  everything  that  it  will  bring 
me  to  see;  to  be  a  confessor  of  Christ  as  soon  as  it 
appears  to  be  enjoined  upon  me;  to  go  on  a  mission 
to  the  world's  end  if  due  conviction  sends  me;  in  a 
word,  to  be  in  wholly  right  intent,  and  have  no  mind 
but  this  forever?"  As  soon  as  the  moral  questions 
were  given  weight,  he  took  his  place  on  the  side  of 
faith. 

One  day  he  came  into  a  meeting  of  fellow-tutors 
and,  throwing  himself  into  a  seat,  he  cried  out  almost 
desperately :  *'  O  men !  what  shall  I  do  with  these 
arrant  doubts  I  have  been  nursing  for  years?  When 
the  preacher  touches  the  Trinity,  and  when  logic  shat- 
ters it  all  to  pieces,  I  am  all  at  the  four  winds.  But 
I  am  glad  I  have  a  heart  as  well  as  a  head.  My  heart 
wants  the  Father;  my  heart  wants  the  Son;  my  heart 
wants  the  Holy  Ghost  —  and  one  just  as  much  as  the 
other.  My  heart  says  the  Bible  has  a  Trinity  for 
me,  and  I  mean  to  hold  by  my  heart.  I  am  glad  that 
a  man  can  do  it  when  there  is  no  other  mooring,  and 
so  I  answer  my  own  question  —  What  shall  I  do? 
But  this  is  all  I  can  do  yet."  This  might  be  called 
a  conversion,  but  it  was  not  strictly  speaking.  He  did 
not  discredit  his  early  faith.  But  it  was  the  begin- 
ning of  rich  spiritual  experiences  that  made  the  full- 
ness of  the  joy  and  the  power  of  his  word.  Love, 
trust,  aspiration,  the  sense  of  duty  are  henceforth  the 
supreme  factors  of  his  life  and  the  organs  of  spiritual 
knowledge.  Without  them  reason  —  divine  gift  as  it 
is  —  is  only  a  wandering  fire.  He  came  back  to  the 
lessons   of   his   Christian  nurture,   which   reason   had 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  95 

misread.  His  life  was  unconsciously  swayed  by  the 
faith  hid  in  his  mother's  heart.  He  learned  the  truth 
of  Melanchthon  and  Schleiermacher,  that  "the  heart 
makes  the  Theologian."  **  He  had  been  delivered  by 
his  heart,  and  henceforth  he  was  to  be  guided  by  his 
heart,  and  not  by  the  logic  that  filled  the  air  about 
him."  ('Hunger.)  Henceforth  truth  is  known  not 
by  speculative  reason  but  by  the  experience  of  trust 
and  devotion.  Experience  is  henceforth  the  means 
of  faith.  "  I  have  learned  more  of  experimental  re- 
ligion since  my  little  boy  died  than  in  all  my  Hfe  be- 
fore." 

Marked  stages  of  experience  stand  back  of  every 
new  expression  of  doctrine. 

The  year  1848,  says  his  wife,  was  the  central  point 
in  the  life  of  Horace  Bushnell.  "  It  was  a  year  of 
great  experiences,  great  thoughts,  great  labors.  At 
the  beginning  he  had  reached  one  of  those  headlands 
where  new  discoveries  open  to  the  sig'ht.  He  had  ap- 
proached it  through  mental  struggles,  trials  and  prac- 
tical endeavors,  keeping  his  steadfast  way  amid  all 
the  side  attractions  of  his  ceaseless  mental  activity." 
He  had  been  attracted  to  the  writings  of  Upham  and 
Madame  Guyon  and  Fenelon  by  their  devout  fervor 
and  unworldly  standards.  And  then  he  had  found 
in  the  New  Testament  that  there  is  a  higher,  fuller 
Hfe  —  that  can  be  lived,  and  set  himself  to  attain  it. 
He  swung  towards  Quietism,  and  then  with  his  self- 
reliant,  energetic  nature,  to  a  more  positive  state. 

*'  In  these  studies,  and  in  the  devout  application  by 
which  he  sought  to  realize  in  his  own  experience  the 
great  possibilities  unfolding  to  his  conception,  the  new 
year  came  in.  On  an  early  morning  of  February,  his 
wife  awoke,  to  hear  that  the  light  they  had  waited 


96  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

for,  more  than  they  that  watch  for  the  morning,  had 
risen  indeed.  She  asked,  What  have  you  seen?  He 
replied,  The  Gk)spel.  It  came  to  him  at  last,  after  all 
his  thought  and  study,  not  as  something  reasoned  out, 
but  as  an  inspiration  —  a  revelation  from  the  mind  of 
God  himself."  It  was  the  thought  of  Christ  as  the 
indwelling,  formative  life  of  the  soul  —  the  new  cre- 
ating power  of  righteousness  for  humanity.  And  this 
conception,  pervading  his  sermons,  was  more  ade- 
quately set  forth  in  his  book,  **  God  in  Christ." 

He  himself  regarded  this  as  a  crisis  in  his  spiritual 
life.  **  I  seemed  to  pass  a  boundary,"  he  said.  *'  I 
had  never  been  very  legal  in  my  Christian  life,  but 
now  I  passed  from  those  partial  seeings,  glimpses  and 
doubts,  into  a  clearer  knowledge  of  God  and  into  His 
inspirations,  which  I  have  never  lost.  The  change 
was  into  faith,  a  sense  of  the  freeness  of  God  and  the 
ease  of  approach  to  Him.  Christian  faith  is  the  faith 
of  a  transaction.  It  is  not  the  committing  one's 
thought  in  assent  to  any  proposition,  but  the  trusting 
of  one's  being  to  a  being,  there  to  be  rested,  kept, 
guided,  molded,  governed  and  possessed  forever." 
This  faith  made  a  new  man  of  him  —  rather  invested 
him  with  a  divine  atmosphere. 

Hence  he  tried  to  show  the  inner  experiences  of  the 
soul  and  to  set  them  in  orderly  form:  to  show  the 
reason  of  faith  and  the  orderly  way  in  which  the  most 
supernatural  workings  of  God  are  carried  on. 

He  belonged  to  no  school  except  Christ's  school, 
and  in  this  inner  experience  of  Christ  he  hoped  to 
find  the  mediating  element  between  conflicting  schools 
of  opinion.  In  this  hope  he  gave  his  noted  sermon 
at  Harvard  on  The  Atonement  —  the  seed  thought  of 
the   "  Vicarious   Sacrifice  " —  that   it   was  the  power 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  97 

working  in  us  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  and  so  bring- 
ing us  into  at-onement  with  God.  It  was  this  that 
gave  him  so  catholic  sympathies,  finding  spiritual  af- 
finity in  men  of  such  antipodal  theology  as  Dr.  Bartol 
of  Boston  and  Charles  G.  Finney  of  Oberlin. 

In  a  sermon  to  his  people  on  his  twenty  years'  min- 
istry he  estimates  the  power  value  of  experience. 
"  Christianity  is  opened  to  me  now  as  a  new  heaven 
of  truth,  a  supernatural  heaven,  wide  as  the  firma- 
ment, possible  only  to  faith  —  to  that  luminous,  clear 
and  glorious.  This  thing  I  have  found,  that  it  is  not 
in  man  to  think  out  a  Gospel,  or  to  make  a  state  of 
light  by  phosphorescence  at  his  own  center.  He  can 
have  the  great  mystery  of  godliness  only  as  it  is  mir- 
rored in  his  heart  by  an  inward  revelation  of  Christ. 
Do  the  will  and  you  shall  know  the  doctrine  —  this  is 
the  truth  I  have  proved  by  my  days  of  experience." 

If  God  comes  into  vital  experience  of  the  soul,  men 
may  be  inspired  now  —  must  be  —  as  in  times  past. 
*'  We  have  it  clearly  made  out  that  there  is,  and  is 
always  to  be,  an  inspired,  in  the  sense  of  a  spirit-led 
life,  when  the  secret  of  the  Lord  will  be  in  the  soul, 
and  Christ  manifested  as  its  light."  **  There  are  two 
kinds  of  inspiration,  the  inspiration  of  character  and 
the  inspiration  of  use.  To  all  men  he  gives  the  first 
inspiration,  and  to  all  men  the  last.  But  in  the  last 
they  are  not  all  wanted  to  be  prophets,  but  some  to 
be  shoemakers  and  bankers.  Are  all  prophets?  Are 
all  workers  of  miracles?  No.  It  is  even  competent 
for  him  to  say  that  he  wants  no  more  Scripture  writ- 
ten, and  he  is  the  judge." 

Dr.  Bushnell  held  that  experience  was  a  continuous 
revelation  of  God.  In  a  letter  from  Clifton  Springs 
to  his  wife  he  makes  an  outline  of  his  experience  and 


98  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

the  truths  unfolded :  "  I  had  some  very  fresh  and 
delightful  musings  of  the  morning  on  the  Vicarious 
Sacrifice  in  Believers.  Following  out  the  theme  yes- 
terday morning  for  two  hours  before  rising,  I  seemed 
to  be  set  on  by  another  great  stage  in  my  heart's  life. 
I  never  saw  so  distinctly  as  now  what  it  is  to  be  a 
disciple,  or  what  the  key-note  is  of  all  most  Christly 
experience.  I  think  too  that  I  have  made  my  last  dis- 
covery in  this  mine.  First,  I  was  led  along  into  initial 
experience  of  God,  socially  and  by  force  of  the  blind 
religional  instinct  in  my  nature;  second,  I  was  ad- 
vanced into  the  clear  moral  light  of  Christ  and  of 
God,  as  related  to  the  principle  of  rectitude;  third, 
I  was  set  on  by  the  inward  personal  discovery  of 
Christ,  and  of  God  as  represented  in  him ;  now  fourth, 
I  lay  hold  and  appropriate  the  general  culminating  fact 
of  God's  vicarious  character  in  goodness,  and  of  mine 
to  be  accomplished  in  Christ  as  a  follower.  My  next 
stage  of  discovery  will  be  when  I  drop  the  body  and 
go  home,  to  be  with  Christ  in  the  conscious,  openly 
revealed  fellowship  of  a  soul,  whose  affinities  are  with 
him." 

Whatever  we  may  think  about  Dr.  BushneH's  views 
of  truth,  and  that  they  are  full  or  final  he  was  the 
last  man  to  hold  (he  cared  not  to  leave  a  system  of 
thought,  but  a  living  conception  that  might  be  seed- 
thought  to  others)  no  one  can  doubt  the  reality  of  his 
soul-experiences  and  the  depth  and  genuineness  of 
his  faith.  He  was  transformed  by  it.  He  had  the 
power  of  godliness.  His  prayers  were  even  more  than 
his  sermons,  the  communings  of  one  heart  with  an- 
other. 

There  is  nothing  more  striking  in  the  history  of 
worship   than  the  impressions  made  upon  the   Yale 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  99 

students  by  the  prayers  of  Bushnell.  "  Gaunt  was 
he,  gray,  ashen  of  skin,  thin-voiced  till  he  got  under 
way,  stopping  time  and  again  to  cough,  no  elocution, 
no  rhetoric  (albeit  scarcely  ever  such  rhetoric,  soberly 
conceived),  making  us  his  by  no  ad  capitandum  themes, 
or  illustrations,  or  metaphors;  the  plainest,  most 
matter  of  fact  person  that  ever  stood  there.  His  in- 
vocation, which  we  could  scarcely  hear,  would  still 
us.  The  Scripture  lesson,  plain  speech  (as  if  uttered 
on  yesterday's  half-holiday)  about  some  valiant  soul, 
read  as  only  one  reads  who  dwells  forever  with  reali- 
ties, would  change  our  temper  for  the  entire  day. 
Then  the  prayer.  I  can  hear  it  yet.  Nothing  about 
Bushnell  so  holds  me,  though  I  cannot  recall  a  sen- 
tence of  it.  You  deemed,  like  Jacob  at  Bethel,  that 
God  was  there.  All  conventions  too  were  dissolved 
betwixt  Him  and  you.  Our  seer  must  have  held  Him 
with  his  glittering  eye.  Then  the  great  argument  be- 
gan—  a  shorter  pastoral  prayer  than  we  had  ever 
heard,  that  spake  to  the  Infinite  as  a  man  to  his  friend ; 
reverent  but  familiar ;  grateful  but  self-respecting ;  dic- 
tion the  simplest,  the  weightest:  hesitating  not  to  as- 
sume for  us  responsibilities,  nor  to  lay  answering  re- 
sponsibilities on  God  (you  divined,  now,  how  it  was  that 
Jacob  had  wrestled  at  face  of  God,  and  had  success- 
fully thrown  down  his  gauntlet  before  Jehovah) ;  and 
done,  as  all  straight,  pregnant  speech  is  done,  soon, 
simply,  confidently.  The  world  has  changed  when 
you  lift  your  head.  To  have  heard  Bushnell  pray, 
and  to  have  prayed  even  a  very  little  with  him,  was 
already  to  have  entered  the  world  of  spirit.  Our  Sa- 
viour's unique  prayer  life  was  explicable  thereafter."  ^ 

1  Hunger's  "Life  of  Bushnell,"  p.  290. 


lOO  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

**  The  sense  of  dissent,"  say  Austin  Phelps,  *'  grew 
dim  in  my  own  mind  when  I  came  near  to  the  inner 
spirit  of  the  man.  That  was  beautifully  and  pro- 
foundly Christlike." 

In  his  last  days,  in  the  heat  of  fever,  the  very  wan- 
derings of  his  mind  were  all  towards  God.  '*  He  had 
traveled  that  way  so  long  that  he  could  not  lose  it  in 
any  mists  of  the  brain."  **  Well,  now  " —  they  were 
his  last  words  — ''  we  are  all  going  home  together ; 
and  I  say,  the  Lord  be  with  you  —  and  in  grace  — 
and  peace  —  and  love  —  and  that*s  the  way  I  have 
come  along  home." 

I  have  not  left  myself  much  time  to  speak  of  his 
preaching  —  distinctly  as  such.  But  I  feel  that  I 
have  really  been  speaking  of  the  preacher  all  the  while. 
If  you  should  ask  me  for  the  one  element  that  makes 
the  sermons  of  Horace  Bushnell  peculiar  and  great  — 
I  should  answer  in  one  word  —  Experience.  "  I 
have  seen,  therefore  have  I  spoken  "  gives  the  sermon 
its  significance. 

You  remember  the  description  of  Augustine's 
preaching  in  Kinsley's  Hypatia :  **  Well,  whether 
or  not,  Augustine  knew  truths  for  all  men,  he  at  least 
knew  sins  for  all  men,  and  for  himself  as  well  as  his 
hearers.  There  was  no  denying  that.  He  was  a  real 
man  right  or  wrong.  What  he  rebuked  in  others,  he 
had  felt  in  himself,  and  fought  it  to  the  death-grip, 
as  the  flash  and  quiver  of  that  worn  face  proclaimed." 
You  feel  the  same  grip  in  the  sermons  of  Horace 
Bushnell.  He  lays  bare  your  soul,  its  hidden  motives 
and  workings.  He  brings  to  your  consciousness  things 
you  hardly  dreamed  were  there  and  yet  such  as  you 
recognize  as  yours.  He  introduces  you  to  yourself, 
your  deeper  self,  yes  and  your  nobler  self.     And  he 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  lor 

reveals  God  in  Christ,  and  traces  the  working  of  his 
spiritual  law  as  only  a  man  can  who  has  himself 
known.  There  is  the  realism  of  the  witness.  It  is 
not  the  reasonings  of  his  mind,  the  flow  of  his  speech, 
but  the  gift  of  his  life.  The  life  has  not  gone  out 
of  the  sermons,  though  bound  up  in  books.  They  are 
charged  with  personality:  they  come  tingling  with 
life. 

They  are  full  of  virility,  as  the  man  himself  was. 
One  might  suppose  that  with  the  constant  exalting 
of  faith  over  reason,  the  trusting  of  the  soul's  desires 
as  pathways  to  God,  there  might  be  undue  manifesta- 
tions of  emotion,  sentiment  unrestrained  by  judgment, 
realms  of  mystic  thought  where  sensible  minds  could 
not  and  would  not  follow.  But  such  is  not  the  case. 
Harmony  with  nature  is  his  great  thought,  and  real- 
ism is  the  quality  of  both  thought  and  style,  but  it  is 
the  larger  realism.  He  is  scientific  in  his  method, 
that  is  he  keeps  his  eye  on  what  he  holds  to  be  facts, 
tracing  the  human  side  of  truth,  that  which  he  could 
test  by  experience.  He  is  bold  and  fearless  and  rugged 
in  this  method,  combining  reason  and  imagination, 
common  sense  and  sentiment,  and  compelling  men  to 
think,  trying  to  get  under  the  outward  appearances  of 
things  to  the  inner  realities  of  the  spirit,  and  thereby 
at  the  same  time  profoundly  touching  the  emotions. 
Take  the  sermon  on  "  The  Capacity  of  Religion  Ex- 
tirpated by  Disuse  " — **  Take  the  talent  from  him  " — 
as  the  example  of  his  strength  —  the  energy  that  moves 
on  in  accurate,  fearless,  sympathetic  portrayal  of  the 
soul's  experience.  **  This  deforming  process  is  a 
halfing  process,  with  all  that  are  in  it.  It  extermi- 
nates the  noblest  side  of  faculty  in  them,  and  all  the 
most  affluent  springs  of  their  greatness  it  forever  dries 


102  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

away.  It  murders  the  angel  in  us,  and  saves  the 
drudge  or  the  worm.  The  man  that  is  left  is  but  a 
partial  being,  a  worker,  a  schemer,  a  creature  of  pas- 
sion, thought,  will,  hunger,  remorse;  but  no  divine 
principle,  no  Kinsman  of  Christ,  or  of  God.  And 
this  is  the  fearful  taking  away  of  which  our  blessed 
Lord  admonishes;  a  taking  away  of  the  gems  and 
leaving  the  casket,  a  taking  away  of  the  great,  and 
leaving  the  little,  a  taking  away  of  the  godlike  and 
celestial  and  a  leaving  of  the  sinner  in  his  sin." 

Dr.  Bushneirs  sermons  have  kinship  with  poetry  in 
that  they  are  truth  in  the  realm  of  the  imagination. 
Imagination  helps  him  to  his  vision  of  truth,  and  is  the 
creative  power  that  fixes  the  vision  of  the  spirit  in 
living  form.  Dr.  Hawes  of  Hartford,  the  severe  critic 
of  Dr.  Bushneirs  theology,  felt  that  imagination  was 
an  unreal  and  misleading  faculty  in  religion  and  was 
therefore  to  be  checked  and  even  suppressed.  He 
also  as  a  young  man  was  given  to  imaginings,  visions 
of  the  soul,  glimpses  of  realms  beyond  the  beaten  path; 
but  he  felt  that  they  might  be  temptations  of  the  evil 
one,  taking  the  youth  again  to  the  pinnacle  of  the 
temple  and  showing  him  the  kingdoms  of  the  world. 
And  so  he  took  a  course  that  fairly  extirpated  this 
faculty  by  disuse.  His  teaching  was  Scriptural  in 
form,  vigorously  and  conscientiously  so,  but  it  was 
hard,  dogmatic,  without  the  subtle  persuasions  of  life. 
It  is  essentially  rationalism.  Nothing  can  be  so  un- 
real as  logic. 

This  gives  comprehensiveness.  *'  The  effect  of  my 
preaching  never  was  to  overthrow  one  school  and  set 
up  the  other;  neither  was  it  to  find  a  position  of  neu- 
trality midway  between  them;  but  as  far  as  theology 
was  concerned,  it  was  to  comprehend  if  possible,  the 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  103 

truth  contended  for  in  both ;  in  which  I  had  of  course 
abundant  practice  in  the  subtleties  of  speculative  lan-^ 
guage,  but  had  the  Scriptures  always  with  me,  bolting 
out  their  free,  incautious  opposition,  regardless  of  all 
subtleties."  ^ 

The  imagination  is  just  as  divine  a  faculty  as  rea- 
son. It  adds  force,  clearness,  distinctness  of  outline, 
vividness  of  coloring  to  man's  ordinary  conception. 
It  flashes  its  way  where  reason  painfully  gropes  and 
has  important  use  in  all  the  results  of  human  thought. 
The  generalizations  of  science  could  not  be  made  with- 
out it.  And  without  its  aid  the  elements  of  religious 
truth  cannot  be  harmonized.  Imagination  is  the  power 
of  larger  vision,  a  penetrative  and  interpretive  power, 
seeing  into  the  heart  or  towards  the  heart  of  things, 
and  feeling  the  greatness  of  that  still  beyond  its  sight. 
It  is  not  satisfied  with  perception.  It  is  a  faculty  that 
combines,  harmonizes  and  embodies  the  truths  seen  in 
immortal  forms.  And  the  imaginative  insight  gives 
a  glow  of  heart,  an  inspiration  that  is  the  condition  of 
the  highest  pulpit  teaching.  Emotion  inseparably  at- 
tends it,  and  so  it  makes  its  appeal  to  both  intellect 
and  feelings. 

The  imagination  is  the  creative  and  persuasive  spirit 
of  Dr.  BushneH's  sermons.  It  helps  him  to  his  in- 
terpretation of  Scripture  fact  and  doctrine  —  his  con- 
ception, and  then  puts  that  conception  before  us  a 
living  and  life-giving  whole. 

Such  sermons  as  *'  Every  man's  life  a  plan  of  God," 
the  **  Dignity  of  human  nature  shown  from  its  Ruins," 
the  **  Power  of  an  endless  life,"  are  in  their  own  sphere 
of  pulpit  teaching  as  truly  works  of  creative  imagina- 

1  Munger,  p.  54. 


104  THE  Pl/LFIT  AKD  AMERICAN  LIFE 

tion  as  the  Minerva  of  Phidias,  the  Madonna  of  Ra- 
phael, or  the  King  Lear  of  Shakespeare. 

The  style  of  Horace  Bushnell  is  as  original  as  the 
man.  It  is  lacking  in  simplicity,  sometimes  awkward 
and  involved  in  structure,  struggling  now  and  then 
after  the  unattainable,  and  then  again  under  the  pulse 
of  imaginative  feeling  moving  on  in  the  stately, 
rhythmical  flow  of  the  highest  eloquence.  He  did  not 
cultivate  peculiarity.  He  did  not  seek  to  be  obscure. 
He  had  to  think  in  his  own  way  and  he  tried  to  make 
his  language  the  form  of  the  life  —  or  to  use  his  own 
figure,  the  shadow  of  the  thought.  That  there  are 
some  shadows  in  it  we  must  all  feel.  It  has  something 
of  the  mystery  of  his  own  being,  and  of  the  life  of 
the  spirit.  It  is  a  path  moving  on,  mostly  in  the  light, 
with  many  simple  and  interesting  things  close  by  the 
way  —  but  now  and  then  passing  into  the  mist  and 
storm  cloud  —  with  rifts  into  the  infinite  blue. 

"  I  have  felt  that  our  Dr.  Bushnell  would  have 
helped  the  world  to  understand  him  faster,  if  he  had 
not  set  an  image  in  his  almost  every  word  like  the 
face  and  flash  of  a  diamond.  Of  course  this  is  the 
peril  of  affluence,  even  as  overflows  are  the  peril  of 
well- watered  lands;  but  dear  me!  let  us  have  waters 
anyhow.  We  will  dam  them.  We  will  hew  channels 
for  them.  And  we  had  rather  be  drowned  in  them, 
than  to  dry  up  and  die  in  the  sand-wastes  of  a  dic- 
tion absolutely  and  forever  arid."  ^ 

One  of  his  children  gives  this  interesting  glimpse 
of  the  man  in  the  pulpit :  '*  I  could'  not  better  sug- 
gest a  picture  of  him  than  by  words  of  his  own, 
which  he  applied  to  another  — *  His  brow  hangs  heavy 

1"  Burton  Lectures,"  p.  117. 


HORACE  BUSHNELL  105 

over  his  desk,  and  ithe  glow  of  his  majestic  face  and 
the  clear  luster  of  his  meditative  eye  reveal  the  mighty 
soul  discoursing  with  the  inward  oracle.'     When  kin- 
dled by  a  strong  thought,  his  whole  face  glowed  with 
a  spiritual  beauty;  and,   sometimes,   in   moments   of 
deep  feeling,  the  tears  would  spring  unbidden  to  his 
eyes,  and  brim  over  as   from  a  child's  eyes,  with  a 
beautiful    unconsciousness.     How    well    I    remember 
that  nervous  swing  of  the  right  arm,  which  set  an 
exclamation  point  to  an  important  sentence !     It  ex- 
pressed  will,  ardor,  insistence,  impulse  —  all  in   one 
motion.     He  carried  a  truth  home  by  the  momentum 
he  gave  it.     His  voice  was  naturally  a  good  and  strong 
one,  but  he  never  learned  to  manage  it  well,  straining 
it  sometimes,  not  by  loudness  but  by  emphasis,  and 
doubtless  laying  thus  the  foundation  of  bronchial  trou- 
ble.    I  think  that  in  my  childhood,  I  can  remember 
his  subdividing  his  sermons  more  than  he  did  later, 
and  giving  them  a  more  formal  shape.     A  little  boy 
once  complained  to  me  — *  Your  father  said  sixthly, 
and  then  he  went  back  and  said  secondly/     This  was 
indeed  a  grievous  ground  of  complaint  to  a  child  who 
was  impatiently  waiting  to  hear  seventhly  and  lastly." 
The  character  of  Dr.  Bushnell,  the  vision  and  grace 
of  the  man,  and  his  hold  upon  the  men  who  knew  him 
the  best,  is  seen  in  the  account  of  his  last  sermon. 
*'  He  was  in  very  feeble  health,  and  the  signs  of  phys- 
ical distress  were  only  too  apparent  in  his  speech  and 
motions.     When  his  part  was  called,  he  said  in  a  very 
subdued  and  tender  voice  — '  Brethren,  I  am  going  to 
read  you  what-  is  probably  the  last  sermon   I   shall 
write,'  and  then  he  announced  his  subject,  *  Our  rela- 
tions to   Christ  in  the  future  life.'     In  the  circum- 
stances the  mere  announcement  of  such  a  subject  was 


io6  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

enough  to  put  us  all  in  a  state  of  tender  awe.  It  did 
not  seem  boldness  in  him  to  be  thus  looking  within  the 
veil.  We  felt  that  he  was  to  speak  of  what  he  knew, 
and  not  out  of  conjecture  merely.  As  he  read  on  and 
on,  we  listened  with  deepening  awe  and  tenderness 
to  the  close.  The  shadow  of  the  coming  separation 
fell  upon  us,  and  when  the  reading  ceased  there  was 
a  strange  silence.  One  by  one  the  ministers,  as  they 
were  called  upon,  declined  to  speak.  Presently  one 
was  called  who  had  long  been  intimate  with  the  doc- 
tor, and  when  he  shook  his  head,  the  doctor  said, 
*  Come,  tell  us  what  you  think  of  it.'  He  hesitated, 
and  then  began,  *  Dr.  Bushnell  tells  us  that  this  —  is  — 
his  —  last  —  sermon.'  He  could  go  no  farther,  but 
gave  way  and  broke  out  into  loud  weeping.  And  we 
all  wept  together  with  him.  It  was  like  the  parting 
of  St.  Paul  with  the  Ephesian  elders.  Then  we  knew 
how  we  loved  him,  and  what  an  unspeakable,  irrepa- 
rable loss  his  departure  would  be  for  us  —  that  de- 
parture which  was  evidently  right  at  hand.  The 
dear  old  doctor  sat  there,  calmest  of  all,  his  deep, 
dark  eyes  glistening  with  tears,  his  face  radiant  like 
Stephen's,  and  behdd  us  with  a  look  of  heavenly 
grace  and  benediction,  until  the  weeping  ceased,  and 
the  Master  seemed  to  have  made  Himself  manifest  in 
a  great  peace." 


VI 

HENRY   WARD  BEECHER 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  is  credited  with  the  witty 
remark  that  mankind  was  divided  into  the  *'  saints  and 
sinners  and  the  Beecher  family."  It  was  when  the 
Beecher  family  were  very  much  in  evidence.  The  fa- 
ther, Lyman  Beecher,  perhaps  the  most  stalwart,  in- 
dependent and  aggressive  minister  of  his  time,  had  not 
ceased  to  thunder.  His  two  daughters  were  among 
the  famous  women  of  America;  Catherine  the  older 
a  writer  of  no  mean  strength  and  the  pioneer  in  the 
higher  education  of  women;  Harriet  (Mrs.  Stowe) 
still  the  most  creative  female  mind  in  American  litera- 
ture. The  seven  sons  were  all  ministers,  each  one 
strong  in  his  way,  and  not  unworthy  of  his  sire 
or  his  kinship  to  the  Plymouth  pastor.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  the  eighth  child  of  Lyman  Beecher  and  Rox- 
anna  Foote  Beecher,  had  the  gifts  of  the  family  in  a 
marked  and  perfected  degree.  He  is  so  original  in  his 
endowment,  so  exceptional  in  his  experience  and  in- 
fluence, that  he  is  easily  distinguished  from  mankind, 
especially  from  his  brethren  in  the  ministry.  He  is 
many  in  one,  and  the  many  seem  at  times  to  speak 
contradictory  voices.  In  fact  he  is  a  blending  of  con- 
tradictions or  opposites.  There  is  a  profound  melan- 
choly under  a  genial  humor  that  plays  over  all  like 
summer  sunshine;  a  tenderness  and  sympathy  with  all 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  that  brings  tears  to  his 

107 


Io8  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

eyes  at  sight  of  a  helpless  child  or  a  gull  beating 
against  a  storm,  with  a  scorn  of  men,  an  independence 
of  judgment,  that  makes  him  the  champion  of  un- 
popular but  righteous  causes  and  his  words  at  times 
like  thunder-bolts ;  an  intellectual  sensibility  quick  and 
powerful  to  discern  the  loftiest  truths,  with  periods 
of  apparent  dullness  and  unproductiveness;  an  imagi- 
nation  which  "  transforms  heaven  and  earth  into  a 
radiant  procession  of  pictures  "  with  a  hard  common 
sense  and  practicality  that  handles  the  commonest  mat- 
ters with  ungloved  hands;  a  keen  insight  into  char- 
acter, into  its  subtle  and  complex  motives  that  made 
his  pictures  of  life  as  realistic  as  Hogarth's;  with  an 
unsophisticated  confidence  in  human  nature  that  made 
him  the  dupe  of  any  unprincipled  sharper;  an  emo- 
tional nature  that  swept  the  whole  power  of  his  be- 
ing in  any  single  motive ;  with  an  ethical  sense  so  fine 
and  true  that  every  truth  was  held  in  its  relation  to 
conduct   and   the   powers  of   earth   were   helpless   to 
deflect  him  from  the  path  of  duty.     All  these  elements 
blended  into  one  original,  affluent,  creative  personal- 
ity.    He    was    a    many-sided    genius.     He    has    been 
called  more  than  once  the  "  Shakespeare  of  the  Amer- 
ican pulpit." 

It  may  be  hastily  thought,  what  has  such  a  man  to 
do  with  us?  He  is  a  genius,  one  of  the  few  excep- 
tional men  of  the  pulpit,  what  help  can  he  give  to  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  ministry?  It  is  a  natural  feeling 
but  not  warranted  by  the  facts  of  Mr.  Beecher's  ex- 
perience and  work.  No  American  preacher  can  help 
us  more,  both  by  direct  teaching  and  by  suggested 
warning.  His  experience  is  full  of  the  most  practical 
lessons,  and  his  life  speaks  with  the  inspiration  of  a 
lofty  and  devoted  manhood.     It  is  this  purpose  that 


guides  the  study  of  Mr.  Beecher ;  not  so  much  the  esti- 
mate of  the  preacher  and  orator  as  the  lessons  of  his 
experience. 


The  Preparation  of  the  Man 

God  prepared  this  man  for  his  work;  the  prepara- 
tion was  going  on  all  through  his  life;  each  step  was 
for  the  next,  and  is  manifested  as  in  few  lives  in 
character,  message,  and  service.  Notice  the  prepara- 
tion of  birth  and  ear<ly  training.  His  sister,  Mrs. 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  in  the  sketch  in  **  Men  of  our 
Times,"  his  son-in-law.  Rev.  Mr.  Scoville,  in  "  Boy- 
hood Memorabilia,"  and  Rev.  Frank  S.  Child  in  the 
'*  Boyhood  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  have  dwelt  with 
suggestive  analysis  and  incident  upon  these  formative 
influences.  His  spiritual  inheritance  was  from  his 
mother,  who  died  when  he  was  three  years  old;  his 
love  of  beauty,  his  imagination,  his  subtle  insight  into 
truth  and  life,  his  quick  and  tender  response  to  hu- 
man need.  '*  It  was  the  mother's  wish  and  prayer 
that  her  sons  all  devote  themselves  to  the  Gospel  min- 
istry. The  current  of  her  faith  flowed  through  the 
life-work  of  her  children.  And  Henry  Ward  received 
double  portion  of  her  spirit." 

The  training  of  his  conscience  came  from  his  step- 
mother. She  had  a  moral  force,  a  dignity  of  de- 
meanor, an  air  of  elegance,  an  inflexible  conscience 
that  produced  unconscious  awe  in  the  minds  of  the 
little  ones.  ''  She  gave  the  strength  of  her  imperious 
intellect  to  the  task  of  guiding  the  children  in  the 
knowledge  of  right  and  truth  and  religion."  Though 
the  impression  of  religion  was  **  solemn  and  inflexible 


no  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

and  mysteriously  sad/'  it  made  conscience  clear  and 
imperative.  The  youngest  of  a  large  family  had  little 
attention,  save  discipline.  There  were  no  children's 
books  and  he  did  not  have  a  single  child's  toy.  Very 
early  he  had  strict  duties  given  him,  in  caring  for  the 
garden  and  barn  and  firewood.  He  inherited  a  robust 
constitution  and  the  Spartan  or  rather  Puritan  train- 
ing early  developed  vigor,  self-reliance  and  devotion 
to  duty.  **  At  nine  years  of  age,  in  one  of  those  win- 
ter droughts  common  in  New  England  towns,  he  har- 
nessed the  horse  to  a  sledge  with  a  barrel  lashed 
thereon,  and  went  off  alone  three  miles  over  the  icy 
top  of  the  town  hill,  to  dip  up  and  bring  home  a 
barrel  of  water  from  a  distant  spring.  His  only  trial 
in  the  case  was  the  humiliation  of  being  positively 
commanded  by  his  careful  step-mother  to  wear  his 
overcoat;  he  departed  obedient,  but  with  tears  of 
mortification  freezing  on  his  cheeks,  for  he  had  re- 
corded a  heroic  vow  to  go  through  a  whole  winter 
without  once  wearing  an  overcoat." 

The  practical  and  emotional  side  of  his  life  was  de- 
veloped by  his  friendship  for  a  colored  servant  of  the 
family,  Charles  Smith.  He  slept  in  the  same  room 
with  him  and  found  in  him  the  real  companionship 
of  his  boyhood.  This  negro  servant  would  pray  and 
read  his  Bible  and  comment  upon  all  with  such  true 
spiritual  insight  and  native  wit  as  to  make  religion 
simple  and  natural.  Mr.  Beecher  says  ithat  from 
Smith  he  first  heard  the  Bible  truly  read.  Old  Testa- 
ment stories  became  real  things.  He  caught  the  flavor 
of  the  Psalms.  The  *'  fret  and  harassment  of  Puri- 
tan piety  "  was  lessened,  and  sweet,  happy  thoughts  of 
God  stirred  the  child's  mind.  Who  can  doubt  that 
here  was  the  beginning  of  that  broadening  of  religion 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  III 

into  truth  for  daily  life  that  marked  his  teachings,  and 
that  interest  in  humble  life,  faith  in  its  divineness,  es- 
pecially the  life  of  the  poor  and  oppressed,  that  made 
Plymouth  pulpit  so  strong  a  force  for  the  freedom  and 
elevation  of  the  negro  race. 

The  fourth  factor  in  the  nature  and  early  training 
of  Beecher  was  the  life  of  his  father.  Lyman  Beecher 
was  a  man  greatly  absorbed  in  his  work,  in  the  study 
and  discussion  of  high  themes  of  theology,  in  the  care 
of  his  church,  in  constant  demand  for  special  services 
outside  his  parish,  in  articles  for  newspapers  and  re- 
views. He  was  marked  for  the  vigor  of  his  intel- 
lectual life  and  the  fervor  of  his  piety.  **  The  great- 
est thing  in  the  world  is  to  save  souls  "  was  his  most 
characteristic  saying,  and  to  this  end  the  powers  of 
mind  and  spirit  were  unweariedly  devoted.  Henry 
Ward  not  only  inherited  the  intellectual  capacity  of 
his  father  but  was  molded  by  that  intellectuality.  It 
is  true  that  Lyman  Beecher  did  not  have  much  to  do 
directly  in  the  training  of  his  children,  but  such  a 
personality  dominated  the  home  as  it  did  the  Church 
and  society.  A  sensitive  boy  like  his  youngest  son 
could  not  fail  to  be  deeply  impressed  by  the  vigorous, 
versatile  and  noble  mind  and  character  of  his  father. 
To  others  there  were  no  prophecies  of  future  great- 
ness in  the  boy,  slow  of  speech  and  rather  dull  of 
books,  bubbling  over  with  good  nature  and  practical 
pranks,  but  with  a  heart  of  dreamy  melancholy,  but 
to  the  father's  heart  there  was  kinship  of  spirit.  **  The 
father  began  his.  instruction  in  mental  mastery  during 
Henry's  early  boyhood.  He  would  argue  some  great 
question  with  the  child,  and  when  the  child  failed  to 
substantiate  his  position,  his  father  would  tell  him 
Whs^t  te  5>tJght  to  say."    As  the  boy's  mind  grew  iq 


112  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

grasp  and  wit,  he  would  test  him  with  problems  and 
investigations.  He  would  get  him  to  marshal  his 
ideas  and  theories  while  they  tramped  over  the  hills 
or  fished  the  streams.  And  so  he  moved  his  mind  into 
a  "  generous  and  natural  activity.^'  One  Sabbatih 
forty  years  after  Henry  Ward  Beecher  preached  a 
most  impressive  sermon.  A  friend  remarked  to  Ly- 
man Beecher,  who  was  present  in  Plymouth  Church, 
"  That  was  a  magnificent  discourse."  "  Yes,"  replied 
the  Doctor  with  some  childishness  but  more  truth, 
**  but  you  wouldn't  have  had  that  sermon  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  me."  **  And  there  is  a  larger  truth  in  the 
saying  of  the  venerable  father  than  lies  upon  the  sur- 
face of  the  words.  Lyman  Beecher  lived  in  his  great 
son.  The  intellectual  forces  which  made  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  a  leader  of  his  fellows  were  not  only  trans- 
mitted to  him  in  germ  as  a  father's  legacy,  they  were 
conserved,  developed,  strengthened,  dominated  by  the 
potent  personality  of  Lyman  Beecher." 

These  were  the  four  early  forces,  spiritual,  dis- 
ciplinary, practical,  intellectual,  that  determined  the 
later  life  and  work  of  Mr.  Beecher. 

And  if  we  are  to  reckon  the  life  forces,  we  must  not 
forget  the  influence  of  nature.  Beecher  was  a  child 
of  nature.  There  was  always  something  about  him 
that  suggested  the  largeness  and  freedom  and  fertility 
of  nature.  Litchfield  County,  Connecticut,  is  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  picturesque  parts  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  in  what  Wordsworth  calls  a  **  wise  passive- 
ness  "  the  boy  received  the  impress  and  lessons  of  nat- 
ural objects.  His  sister  speaks  of  his  **  peculiar  pas- 
sion for  natural  scenery."  Like  Horace  Bushnell,  an- 
other Litchfield  boy,  he  knew  every  stream  and  forest, 
gvery  tree  and  flpwer  and  wogcJ-nQte.     And  in  the  idle 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  1 13 

hours  of  boyhood,  when  books  were  a  dull  world,  the 
mind  was  growing  silently  in  its  perceptions  of  beauty, 
and  storing  that  treasure  of  delightful  memory  and 
appreciative  observation  that  was  to  be  both  the  com- 
fort and  inspiration  of  his  manhood.  Nature  colors 
his  thought  and  lives  in  his  speech.  His  sermons  get 
much  of  their  vividness  from  the  fields,  as  the  words 
of  Christ  did.  And  his  letters  and  sketches  such  as 
the  **  Star  Papers  "  and  '*  Life  Thoughts  "  have  the 
very  breath  of  winds  and  the  odor  of  fields  and  flow- 
ers. '*  The  chief  use  of  a  farm,"  he  says,  '*  if  it  be 
well  selected  and  of  a  proper  soil,  is  to  lie  down  upon. 
Mine  is  an  excellent  farm  for  such  uses,  and  I  thus 
cultivate  it  every  day.  Large  crops  are  the  conse- 
quence, of  great  delight,  and  fancies  more  than  the 
brain  can  hold.*'  And  of  an  elm  tree  standing  in  his 
pasture,  he  writes :  '*  Does  a  man  bare  his  head  in 
some  old  church?  So  do  I,  standing  in  the  shadow  of 
this  regal  tree,  and  looking  up  into  that  completed 
glory  at  which  three  hundred  years  had  been  at  work 
with  noiseless  fingers.  What  was  I  in  its  presence 
but  a  grasshopper  ?  IMy  heart  said,  '  I  may  not  call 
thee  property,  and  that  property  mine.  Thou  belong- 
est  to  the  air.  Thou  art  the  child  of  summer.  Thou 
art  the  mighty  temple  where  birds  praise  God.  Thou 
belongest  to  no  man's  hand,  but  to  all  men's  eyes  that 
do  love  beauty,  and  that  have  learned  through  beauty 
to  behold  God.' " 

Longfellow's  beautiful  tribute  to  Agassiz  is  just  as 
true  of  Mr.  Beecher: 

And  nature,  the  old  nurse,  took 

The  child  upon  her  knee, 
Saying,  **  Here  is  a  story-book 

Thy  Father  has  written  for  thee." 


114  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

"  Come,  wander  with  me,"  she  said, 
"  Into  regions  yet  untrod, 
And  read  what  is  still  unread 
In  the  manuscripts  of  God." 

And  he  wandered  away  and  away 
With  Nature,  the  dear  old  Nurse, 

Who  sang  to  him  night  and  day 
The  rhymes  of  the  universe. 

And  whenever  the  way  seemed  long, 

Or  his  heart  began  to  fail. 
She  would  sing  a  more  wonderful  song, 

Or  tell  a  more  marvelous  tale. 

The  training  of  Mr.  Beecher  in  the  schools  is  soon 
told,  but  there  are  some  very  good  things  from  it  for 
preachers  to  remember.  When  Lyman  Beecher  moved 
to  Boston,  where  he  was  pastor  of  Hanover  Street 
Church,  the  fascinations  of  city  life  were  too  much 
at  first  for  the  country  boy,  and  Henry  Ward  spent 
more  time  at  the  docks  and  among  the  ships  than  in 
the  Boston  Latin  School.  It  was  only  the  hunger  of 
the  boy's  mind  after  the  larger  world,  just  as  at  Litch- 
field he  passed  through  the  stage  coach  period,  when 
he  knew  every  driver,  and  was  allowed  to  handle  the 
four-in-hand  and  thought  that  the  only  way  to  know 
the  world  was  to  be  a  stage-driver.  Though  out  of 
love  and  obedience  to  his  father  he  mastered  the  Latin 
Grammar,  knowing  it  from  cover  to  cover,  it  fell  out 
by  a  good  chance  that  his  father  learned  of  his  ambi- 
tion to  be  a  sailor,  not  of  course  a  common  sailor,  but 
a  midshipman  and  sometime  an  admiral.  So  his  fa- 
ther shrewdly  persuaded  him  that  the  only  hope  of 
realizing  such  an  ambition  was  to  become  proficient  in 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  115 

mathematics,  and  so  sent  him  to  a  good  preparatory 
school  at  Amherst,  saying  quietly  to  himself,  '*  We 
shall  yet  make  a  minister  of  Henry  Ward."  The  in- 
fluence of  a  revival  of  religion  and  the  nearness  to 
Amherst  college  soon  drove  thoughts  of  the  sea  from 
his  mind  and  he  entered  Amherst  and  after  the  due 
college  course,  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  where 
his  father  was  then  President  and  Professor  of  Theol- 
ogy. The  two  striking  facts  of  his  preparatory  work 
was  his  study  of  elocution  and  of  mathematics.  No 
one  would  have  predicted  a  speaker  of  the  boy,  bash- 
ful and  with  thick  and  indistinct  utterance.  **  When 
Henry  is  sent  to  me  with  a  message,"  said  a  good  aunt, 
*'  I  always  have  to  make  him  say  it  three  times.  The 
first  time  I  have  no  manner  of  an  idea  more  than  if  he 
spoke  Choctaw;  the  second,  I  catch  now  and  then  a 
word;  by  the  third  time,  I  begin  to  understand." 

Mr.  Beecher  always  cherished  a  grateful  memory 
of  Mr.  Lowell,  his  teacher  of  elocution.  *'  A  better 
teacher  in  his  department  never  was  made."  His  voice 
was  developed  by  most  persevering,  systematic  train- 
ing. **  His  gestures  and  the  management  of  his  body 
went  through  a  drill  corresponding  to  that  which  the 
military  youth  goes  through  at  West  Point,  to  make 
his  body  supple  to  the  exigencies  of  military  evolu- 
tion." He  never  could  have  attained  his  success  with- 
out this  training,  and  though  he  developed  a  voice  of 
unusual  purity  and  compass,  with  the  range  from  a 
bird  note  to  a  thunderstorm,  expressive  of  every  shade 
of  thought  and  feeling,  and  his  face  like  an  actor's; 
not  a  mask,  but  as  expressive  as  the  voice;  to  the  last 
of  his  life,  by  daily  exercise  in  elocution  he  kept  the 
voice  the  perfect,  facile  instrument  of  speech. 

His  training  in  mathematics  was  no  less  vigorous 


Ii6  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

and  successful.  He  did  not  like  mathematics  but  to 
gratify  his  teacher,  a  West  Point  graduate  for  whom 
he  formed  a  romantic  friendship,  and  to  become  a 
great  admiral  like  Nelson,  he  gave  himself  to  this  dis- 
agreeable task.  "  Thanks  to  his  friend  and  teacher 
Fitzgerald,  his  mathematical  training  had  given  him 
the  entire  mastery  of  La  Croix's  Algebra,  so  that  he 
was  prepared  to  demonstrate  at  random  any  proposi- 
tion as  chance  selected  —  not  only  without  aid  or 
prompting  from  the  teacher,  but  controversially  as 
against  the  teacher,  who  would  sometimes  publicly 
attack  the  pupil's  method  of  demonstration,  disputing 
him  step  by  step,  when  the  scholar  was  expected  to 
know  with  such  positive  clearness  as  to  put  down  and 
overthrow  the  teacher.  '  You  must  not  only  know, 
but  you  must  know  that  you  know,'  was  Fitzgerald's 
maxim;  and  Mr.  Beecher  attributed  much  of  his  sub- 
sequent habit  of  steady  antagonistic  defense  of  his 
own  opinions  to  this  early  mathematical  training." 
By  his  Latin  and  mathematics  he  knew  how  to  study; 
he  had  gained  the  power  of  concentrated  attention, 
and  this  he  devoted  to  his  own  plan  of  culture.  The 
classics  did  not  attract  him,  but  oratory  and  rhetoric 
were  his  weapons  he  felt  to  reach  the  men  of  to-day. 
So  he  devoted  himself  to  English  classical  study.  Mil- 
ton's prose  and  poetry,  Bacon,  Shakspeare,  and  the 
writers  of  the  Elizabethan  period  were  his  classics  and 
these  he  read  again  and  again.  He  was  the  first  hu- 
morist of  his  college  time,  but  all  the  marks  on  the 
well  worn  volumes  of  English  poetry  show  his  love 
of  the  earnest,  the  heroic,  the  pathetic. 

In  his  sophomore  year  as  mere  frolic,  he  began  a 
course  of  investigation  that  colored  his  whole  life.  A 
lecture  on  phrenology  as  a  college  joke  led  to  a  club 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  II7 

for  physiological  research.  And  he  began  his  read- 
ing of  anatomy  and  physiology,  carrying  them  along 
carefully  with  his  studies  in  mental  philosophy.  And 
from  that  day  he  continued  to  read  all  the  physiolog- 
ical writers  of  the  English  language,  forming  a  phys- 
ico-psychology  when  such  a  position  was  far  in  ad- 
vance of  others,  and  on  this  basing  through  life  his 
system  of  thought.  The  man  who  as  a  student  read 
Gall  and  Spurtzheim  naturally  in  later  years  mastered 
the  works  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  tried  to  interpret 
the  truths  of  Christianity  in  the  terms  of  evolutionary 
philosophy. 

The  early  religious  history  of  Mr.  Beecher  was  what 
might  be  expected  from  his  peculiar  endowment  and 
training.  A  child  with  great  depth  of  feeling,  with 
yearning  after  the  beautiful  and  heroic,  with  a  sensi- 
tive conscience  had  always  the  capacity  of  easy  and 
quick  faith  and  devotion,  but  he  waited  in  accordance 
with  the  religious  formulas  of  the  time  for  a  period 
of  deep  conviction  and  for  special  experience  of  God's 
grace.  And  so  boyhood  passed  and  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  a  youth  of  seventeen  before  he  cherished 
even  a  trembling  hope  of  a  Christian.  It  was  the  re- 
sult of  a  revival  season  in  his  preparatory  school  and 
with  more  fear  than  joy  he  joined  himself  with  God's 
people.  During  another  revival  season  in  his  college 
life  he  tried  to  test  his  love  by  some  of  the  profound 
tests  of  Edwards  and  was  left  in  blank  despair.  After 
days  of  almost  hopeless  prayer  his  mind  was  filled 
with  a  sense  of  divine  love  which  seemed  to  him  like 
a  revelation. 

The  Seminary  course  was  a  critical  time  for  Mr 
Beecher,  '*  a  time  of  intellectual  broadening,  earnest 
spiritual   activity,   and   deep   soul   unrest."     For  two 


1 18  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

years  he  was  filled  with  doubts  and  then  came  a  vi- 
sion of  God  as  shining  as  that  which  blinded  Saul  on 
the  Damascus  road  or  filled  the  soul  of  Charles  G. 
Finney  in  his  lawyer's  office.  His  preaching  for  fifty 
years  received  its  direction  and  tone  from  that  hour. 
**  It  then  pleased  God  to  lift  upon  me  such  a  view  of 
Christ,  as  one  whose  nature  and  office  it  is  to  have 
infinite  and  exquisite  pity  upon  the  weakness  and  want 
of  sinners,  as  I  had  never  had  before.  I  saw  that  he 
had  compassion  upon  them  because  they  were  sinners, 
and  because  he  wanted  to  help  them  out  of  their  sins. 
It  came  to  me  like  the  bursting  forth  of  spring.  It 
was  as  if  yesterday  there  was  not  a  bird  to  be 
seen  or  heard  and  as  if  to-day  the  woods  were  full  of 
singing  birds.  There  rose  up  before  me  a  view  of 
Jesus,  as  the  Saviour  of  sinners,  not  of  saints,  but  of 
sinners  unconverted  before  they  were  any  better  be- 
cause they  were  so  bad  and  needed  so  much;  and 
that  view  has  never  gone  from  me.  It  did  not  at 
first  fill  the  whole  heaven ;  it  came  as  a  rift  along  the 
horizon,  gradually,  little  by  little,  the  cloud  rolled  up. 
It  was  three  years  before  the  whole  sky  was  cleared 
so  that  I  could  see  all  around,  but  from  that  hour  I 
felt  that  God  had  a  Father's  heart;  that  Christ  loved 
me  in  my  sin;  that  while  I  was  a  sinner,  He  did  not 
frown  upon  me  nor  cast  me  off,  but  cared  for  me 
with  unutterable  tenderness,  and  would  help  me  out 
of  sin;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  everything 
needed.  When  that  vision  was  vouchsafed  to  me,  I 
felt  that  there  was  no  more  for  me  to  do  but  to  love, 
trust,  and  adore ;  nor  has  there  ever  been  in  my  mind 
a  doubt  since  that  I  did  love,  trust  and  adore.  There 
has  been  an  imperfect  comprehension,  there  have  been 
grievous  sins,  there  h^v?  been  long  defections;  but 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  IIQ 

never  for  a  single  moment  have  I  doubted  the  power 
of  Christ's  love  to  save  me,  any  more  than  I  have 
doubted  the  existence  in  the  heavens  of  the  sun  by  day 
and  the  moon  by  night."  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
this  vision  of  Christ  was  God's  guiding  him  for  a 
great  mission.  He  could  not  preach  any  other  man's 
theology.  No  man  ever  had  a  stronger  passion  for 
souls.  "  I  will  preach,"  he  says  in  the  midst  of  these 
times  of  doubt,  **  if  it  is  in  the  byways  and  hedges." 
'*  I  must  preach  the  Gospel  as  it  is  revealed  to  me." 
And  now  he  had  the  message  of  personal  experience, 
my  Gospel,  as  surely  as  Paul.  *'  To  present  Jesus 
Christ  personally  as  the  Friend  and  Helper  of  hu- 
manity, Christ  as  God  impersonate,  eternally  and  by 
the  necessity  of  his  nature,  helpful  and  remedial  and 
restorative,  the  friend  of  each  individual  soul,  and  thus 
the  friend  of  all  society :  this  was  the  one  thing  which 
his  soul  rested  on  as  a  worthy  object  in  entering  the 
ministry."  He  says  of  his  feelings:  **  I  was  like  the 
man  in  the  story  to  whom  a  fairy  gave  a  purse  with  a 
single  piece  of  money  in  it,  which  he  found  always 
came  again  as  soon  as  he  had  spent  it.  I  thought  I 
knew  at  last  one  thing  to  preach.  I  found  it  included 
everything." 

2 

His  Career  in  the  Ministry 

At  the  close  of  his  seminary  course,  Mr.  Beecher 
accepted  the  first  call  that  came,  to  Lawrenceburg, 
Indiana,  a  rough  frontier  town  on  the  Ohio  River, 
with  fifteen  hundred  people  and  four  distilleries.  The 
Presbyterian  Church  to  which  he  was  called  had 
twenty  members,  nineteen  women  and  one  good  for 


I20  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

nothing  man,  and  the  salary  promised  was  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  a  year.  Here  he  brought  his 
young  wife,  a  gifted  and  cultivated  daughter  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  made  their  first  home.  They  struggled 
with  poverty  together  and  love  grew  purer  and  their 
joys  sweeter.  He  gave  himself  to  his  people  as  though 
there  were  no  other  church  in  the  world.  "  He  did 
all  the  work  of  the  parish  sexton,  making  his  fires, 
trimming  his  lamps,  sweeping  his  house.  He  did  not 
ring  the  bell  simply  because  they  had  none.  '  I  did 
all,'  he  said  whimsically,  '  but  come  to  hear  myself 
preach  —  that  they  had  to  do.'  "  A  deep  impression 
was  made  by  the  new  man  and  his  living  message. 
He  was  the  friend  of  all.  He  sought  out  the  neg- 
lected and  had  a  special  word  for  the  doubter.  He 
had  no  false  humility  and  was  willing  to  wear  old 
clothing  which  kind  friends  gave  him.  He  was  cath- 
olic in  his  spirit,  holding  fast  to  the  personal  Christ 
and  so  preaching  a  comprehensive  Gospel,  building  up 
the  Kingdom  and  not  advancing  the  interests  of  a 
party.  In  the  bitter  and  unjustifiable  attack  upon  his 
father  for  heresy,  in  the  jealousies  and  bickerings  of 
schools  within  the  Church,  in  the  enmities  of  sects 
that  should  work  for  a  common  faith,  he  gained  a 
large  vision  for  his  own  life  which  sometimes  disre- 
garded the  necessity  for  forms  of  truth  and  worship 
for  other  souls.  He  saw  that  a  part  of  the  unbelief 
about  him  was  due  to  the  unwise  zeal  of  Christians 
in  defending  mere  ecclesiastical  trifles,  and  he  deter- 
mined to  speak  only  what  seemed  the  essential,  uni- 
versal principles  of  Christianity.  **  I  remember  rid- 
ing through  the  woods  for  long,  dreary  days,  and  I 
recollect  at  one  time  coming  out  into  an  open  place 
where  the  sun  shone  down  through  the  bank  of  the 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  121 

river,  and  where  I  had  such  a  sense  of  the  love  of 
Christ,  of  the  nature  of  His  work  on  earth,  of  its 
beauty  and  grandeur,  and  such  a  sense  of  the  miser- 
ableness  of  Christian  men  quarreling  and  seeking  to 
build  up  antagonistic  churches  —  in  other  words,  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  rose  up  before  my  mind  with  such 
supreme  loveliness  and  majesty  —  that  I  sat  in  my 
saddle  I  do  not  know  how  long  (many,  many  min- 
utes, perhaps  half  an  hour),  and  there,  all  alone,  in 
a  great  forest  of  Indiana,  probably  twenty  miles  from 
any  house,  I  prayed  for  that  Kingdom,  saying  audibly, 
*  I  will  never  be  a  sectary.' " 

After  three  years  at  Lawrenceburg,  Mr.  Beecher 
went  to  the  Second  Church  of  Indianapolis.  He  did 
not  wish  to  go.  He  had  no  ambition  for  a  larger  field. 
He  mistrusted  his  own  powers.  Twice  he  declined 
the  call,  and  only  went  when  the  Synod  of  Indiana  as 
a  body  urged  the  step.  Indianapolis  was  then  only 
a  struggling  town  of  four  thousand  people,  full  of 
restless  ambition,  and  partisanship,  the  seat  of  gam- 
l)ling,  intemperance,  and  worse  vices,  with  little  of 
the  promise  of  the  noble  city  of  to-day. 

Mr.  Beecher's  powers  had  a  slow  development :  they 
took  time  to  ripen.  Spiritual  success  came  with  hard, 
patient  lessons.  "  For  the  first  three  years  I  did  not 
make  a  single  sinner  wink."  '*  I  went  to  bed  every 
Sunday  night  with  the  vow  that  I  would  buy  a  farm 
and  quit  the  ministry.'' 

But  he  was  a  man  of  immense  industry  and  fidel- 
ity. He  used  the  best  ministers'  helps.  He  made  a 
constant  general  study  of  the  New  Testament,  espe- 
cially the  Gospels,  so  that  Christ  became  as  real  as 
himself.  He  kept  up  the  Shakspearean  dramatists, 
the  great  essayists:   read   widely   in   modern   poetry. 


122  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

He  made  the  Puritan  Preachers  his  daily  companions. 
He  knew  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  South  and  Barrow. 
After  finishing  his  first  lecture  to  young  men,  he  took 
down  a  volume  of  Barrow  and  after  awhile  with  a 
vigorous  motion  of  disgust,  he  threw  his  own  manu- 
script under  the  bookcase  where  it  lay  for  several 
days.  But  he  had  the  good  sense  to  take  it  up  and 
work  it  over,  and  it  was  the  first  of  the  **  Lectures  to 
Young  Men,"  that  had  a  national  influence,  and  was 
the  beginning  of  his  national  fame.  I  have  read  from 
the  Yale  lectures  the  story  of  how  he  preached  what 
he  calls  his  first  sermon.  He  wanted  the  souls  of 
men,  not  a  multitude  of  hearers  or  the  fame  of  an 
orator.  And  so  he  went  to  the  New  Testament  and 
made  a  study  of  the  early  addresses  and  found  that 
the  speaker  began  with  the  knowledge  and  conviction 
of  his  hearers  and  on  this  led  them  to  truth  and 
made  his  appeal  for  action.  And  Mr.  Beecher  fol- 
lowed the  same  method  —  the  natural  method  of  ap- 
proach —  and  nineteen  men  fell  before  the  truth  of 
that  sermon.  And  ever  since  this  has  been  his  method. 
He  emphasizes  what  Dr.  Watson  has  called  the  hu- 
manness  of  the  sermon.  He  does  not  speculate  but 
describes  what  is  going  on  in  the  souls  of  men  and 
gives  what  he  holds  to  be  God's  message  for  present 
need.  Revival  after  revival  followed  his  preaching. 
His  church  grew  from  a  little  handful  of  believers  to 
a  host  of  earnest,  efiFective  workers.  He  went  over 
the  state  helping  other  pastors  in  revival  seasons.  His 
interest  in  practical  life,  temperance,  and  social  wel- 
fare, and  the  cause  of  the  slave,  was  strong  from  the 
first,  and  he  preached  the  truth  fearlessly  but  always 
with  such  Scriptural  argument  and  illustration  and 
the  truth  in  love  that  he  rarely  made  enemies. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  123 

His  western  training  made  him  a  national  preacher. 
It  is  a  reasonable  supposition  that  except  for  the  ten 
years  in  these  small  western  churches  (farther  away 
than  Idaho  to-day)  Mr.  Beecher  would  never  have 
gained  that  minute  knowledge  of  men,  that  genuine 
sympathy  with  all  classes  and  conditions,  that  mas- 
tery of  his  own  powers  of  thought  and  expression 
that  made  him  the  Master  of  Assemblies. 

In  1847  he  went  to  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn. 
He  was  its  first  pastor  and  under  God  made  Plymouth 
Church.  He  had  no  ambition  for  such  a  place,  and 
it  was  a  doubtful  experiment  at  first.  This  young 
man,  whose  style  had  something  of  the  luxuriance  of 
the  western  prairie  and  his  freedom  and  originality 
of  dealing  with  truth  like  the  strong  beating  of  a 
prairie  wind,  attracted  multitudes  at  first.  A  critical 
neighboring  minister  gave  the  young  prodigy  six 
months  to  preach  out.  He  kept  the  same  pulpit  for 
forty  years  and  poured  out  like  some  great  spring 
among  the  hills  his  fresh  and  life-giving  thoughts. 

At  the  examining  council,  he  made  a  poor  figure  in 
technical  theology  but  he  revealed  the  shrewd  wit  and 
deep  love  that  have  been  the  twin-elements  of  his  power 
and  influence.  "  I  am  glad  to  find  one  candidate  who 
knows  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Gospel,"  said 
Horace  Bushnell. 

I  cannot  trace  step  by  step  his  work  as  the  Plymouth 
preacher.  To  his  work  as  a  reformer  I  shall  refer  in 
another  lecture.  God  knows  the  times  and  He  has 
his  men.  He  came  to  the  Kingdom  at  the  right  time. 
And  I  suppose  his  clearest  and  purest  work  is  in  his 
teachings  of  practical  righteousness,  the  work  with 
the  least  earthly  dross  in  it.  His  supreme  aim  is  the 
building  up  of  manhood.     And  to  this  end  he  made 


124  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

men  feel  that  God  loved  them  and  could  help  them. 
He  was  a  hope-bringer  to  toiling,  burdened,  oppressed, 
baffled  and  sinning  humanity.  And  his  teaching  had 
the  best  example  in  the  man.  He  loved  men  with  an 
absorbing  and  impelling  love.  He  bore  their  bur- 
dens, fulfilling  Christ's  law,  even  bearing  in  his  body 
the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  "  He  was  the  chief 
champion  in  America  of  the  pulpit's  duty  to  apply 
Christianity  to  all  the  great  ethical  concerns  of  busi- 
ness and  society."  He  did  in  the  pulpit  what  his  sis- 
ter did  through  fiction.  Of  course  he  roused  intense 
hatred  and  many  times  was  a  sword  blade  rather  than 
a  balm;  but  it  is  hard  to  imagine  the  stern  truths  of 
righteousness  put  in  more  persuasive  forms.  The 
Thanksgiving  sermon  of  i860  against  Compromise  of 
Principle  is  a  good  example  of  his  truth-loving,  fear- 
less message,  and  the  vividness  and  force  and  sweep 
of  his  style. 

'*  Vainglory  will  destroy  us.  Pride  will  wreck  us. 
Above  all,  the  fear  of  doing  right  will  be  fatal.  But 
justice  and  liberty  are  pilots  that  do  not  lose  their 
craft.  They  steer  by  a  divine  compass.  They  know 
the  hand  that  holds  the  winds  and  the  storms.  It  is 
always  safe  to  be  right;  and  our  business  is  not  so 
much  to  seek  peace,  as  to  seek  the  causes  of  peace." 

**  The  rush  of  life,  the  vigor  of  earnest  men,  the 
conflict  of  realities,  invigorate,  cleanse,  and  establish 
truth.  Our  only  fear  should  be  lest  we  refuse  God's 
work.  He  has  appointed  this  people,  and  our  day, 
for  one  of  those  world-battles  on  which  ages  turn. 
Ours  is  a  pivotal  period.  The  strife  is  between  a  dead 
past  and  a  living  future;  between  a  wasting  evil  and 
a  nourishing  good;  between  barbarism  and  civiliza- 
tion." 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  12$ 

His  speeches  in  Great  Britain  in  1863,  at  Manches- 
ter, Glasgow,  Edinburgh,  Liverpool,  and  London,  were 
the  supreme  effort  of  his  life,  for  which  all  previous 
study  and  training  were  the  divine  fitting,  and  he 
turned  the  tide  of  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  North 
and  kept  the  Conservative  ministry  from  recognizing 
the  Southern  Confederacy. 

All  these  years  his  thought  was  maturing  and  his 
power  growing  as  a  preacher.  You  could  find  the 
way  from  Fulton  Ferry  to  Plymouth  Church  any  Sun- 
day morning  by  following  the  crowd.  His  sermons 
were  printed  in  half  a  dozen  great  weeklies.  His  pen 
was  as  productive  as  his  voice.  He  was  successively 
editor  of  the  Independent  and  the  Christian  Union, 
He  wrote  a  novel,  *'  Norwood,"  of  no  structural  value 
but  rich  in  glimpses  of  noble  thought  and  the  very 
idyl  of  New  England  village  life.  He  began  a  life  of 
Christ,  not  critical  or  doctrinal,  but  it  might  be  called, 
as  Mrs.  Ward  has  done  for  hers,  **  The  Story  of  Jesus 
Christ.'' 

And  then  his  sun  was  darkened  at  noon-day.  The 
years  'y2-y6  are  black  and  foul  with  the  Beecher 
scandal.  I  cannot  go  into  it.  All  the  human  fiends, 
all  the  vile  of  thought  and  life  believed  it,  gloated  over 
it  and  tried  to  make  it  true.  Many  good  people  who 
had  been  offended  at  his  keen  thrusts  at  their  cher- 
ished opinions  and  who  held  that  he  was  an  under- 
miner  of  faith,  secretly  believed  in  his  guilt. 

It  is  enough  to  say  that  his  wife  knew  him  to  be 
pure,  that  his  church  after  long  and  thorough  investi- 
gation fully  exonerated  him,  that  a  civil  jury  failed  to 
convict,  that  even  the  opposing  counsel  —  eminent  law- 
yers—  afterwards  confessed  that  they  believed  him 
innocent,  that  a  Congregationalist  council  of  200,  from 


126  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

all  parts  of  the  country,  acquitted  him  without  a  dis- 
senting vote. 

No  doubt  the  trial  did  incalculable  evil  in  corrupt- 
ing the  public  mind,  and  bringing  suspicion  upon  a 
leader  of  faith.  No  man  felt  it  so  keenly  as  Mr. 
Beecher  himself ;  and  in  his  desire  to  save  the  reproach 
of  the  Church  (and  so  the  effort  for  four  years  to 
make  a  false  peace)  and  in  his  morbid  self-condemna- 
tion lest  he  in  some  way  had  given  occasion  for  of- 
fense, were  found  the  sole  materials  of  prosecution. 
Through  it  all  Mr.  Beecher  was  held  by  an  unfalter- 
ing trust,  the  most  abiding  sense  of  Christ's  presence 
and  love,  and  his  prayers  and  his  sermons  were  in  an 
atmosphere  of  loftier  spirituality. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  his  fame  ever  became  per- 
fectly clear  again;  but  who  can  doubt  that  his  final 
force  on  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  will  be  more  efficient 
for  his  bearing  in  this  deepest  sense  the  reproaches 
of  Christ? 

The  thought  of  his  last  years,  under  the  influence  of 
his  philosophical  studies  took  the  form  of  the  restate- 
ment of  Christianity  in  something  of  scientific  terms, 
that  he  might  adjust  Christian  faith  to  its  new  en- 
vironment. Many  feel  that  it  was  his  least  happy 
work.  They  miss  the  old-time  fervor.  They  would 
that  the  words  of  Christ's  love  were  oftener  on  his 
lips.  It  is  certain  that  Mr.  Beecher  never  lost  his  own 
faith.  **  How  can  that  ever  be  finished?"  he  said  of 
the  life  of  Christ.  The  hymn  that  he  chose  for  his 
own  burial  was :  *'  When  I  survey  the  wondrous 
Cross."  And  a  well  known  minister  of  his  own 
church  who  knew  him  as  a  brother  and  often  dis- 
sented from  his  views,  calls  him  **  as  true  a  Christian 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  127 

as  lives,  as  pure  a  soul  as  thinks,  as  simple  and  trust- 
ful a  spirit  as  God  has  in  the  world/'  The  test  of  his 
teachings  will  be  its  fruit  in  life.  If  he  is  among  the 
prophets,  the  seed  will  take  time  to  ripen. 


The  Characteristics  of  His  Preaching 

I  can  only  say  a  word  on  the  special  homiletic 
lessons  of  Mr.  Beecher's  work.  I  have  preferred  to 
let  the  life  tell  its  own  story. 

His  preparation  was  general  rather  than  special. 
He  enriched  himself,  his  own  thought,  rather  that  got 
ready  for  any  special  service.  The  accumulation  was 
always  going  on,  even  when  he  was  the  most  idle. 
He  was  a  hard  student  in  many  lines  of  thought,  rely- 
ing on  specialists  in  different  departments.  He  had 
the  habit  of  filling  the  interstices  of  time,  for  example 
(and  a  bad  example  too)  he  read  Froude's  ''  History 
of  England  "  between  dinner  courses. 

He  studied  men  more  intently  than  books.  He  went 
everywhere  with  his  eyes  open  and  his  heart  open, 
and  so  he  got  sermons  from  shops  and  stores,  from 
streets  and  ferry  boats. 

He  never  spoke  on  any  subject  without  long  study, 
often  years.  His  note-book  was  always  full  of  texts 
and  plans  and  illustrations  and  the  letters  in  his  pocket 
were  covered  with  suggestions.  During  the  week  two 
or  three  topics  would  be  uppermost  in  his  mind.  On 
these  he  would  brood,  and  Sunday  morning  prepare 
a  brief  outline.  Many  of  his  early  sermons  were 
fully  written,  but  the  notes  grew  fewer  and  fewer 
until   only  an   outline   was   suggested.     His   creative 


128  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

impulses  came  periodically  and  by  long  habit  he  was 
able  to  time  them  so  that  they  served  the  highest  work 
of  the  pulpit. 

The  personality  of  Mr.  Beecher  gave  the  charm  and 
power  to  his  pulpit.  In  few  men  were  the  person  and 
the  message  so  vitally  fused,  and  we  can  feebly  gather 
the  sources  of  his  power  by  a  critical  reading  of  his 
sermons.  Yet  the  sermons  are  marked  by  the  reality 
of  the  man  —  and  the  man  is  in  them. 

They  are  marked  by  intellectual  insight,  creative 
imagination  and  humanity  of  feeling.  His  intellec- 
tual, life  is  marked  by  a  sensibility  that  feels  truth, 
an  intuition  that  flashes  its  way  to  the  highest  truths 
of  doctrine  and  life.  He  holds  that  the  truths  of  the 
spiritual  life  are  not  discoverable  by  mere  logical 
faculties,  but  by  special  intuitions  and  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  touches  man  through  these  special  intuitions. 
Here  is  the  strength  and  weakness  of  his  work. 

His  imagination  was  both  creative  and  pictorial. 
His  intuitions  took  form  and  color  and  substance  be- 
fore his  mind.  He  grasped  truth  as  a  concrete  thing. 
And  in  telling  others  what  he  saw  and  felt,  the  im- 
agination furnished  him  the  greatest  wealth  of  strong 
pictorial  speech.  Every  field  and  experience  brought 
its  symbol  or  picture  of  truth.  This  was  especially 
true  in  depicting  human  life.  *'  That  knowledge  of 
anatomy,  character  and  color  which  a  great  painter 
like  Da  Vinci  evinces  in  drawing  the  human  face, 
Mr.  Beecher  applied  after  his  order  in  depicting  the 
inner  life  of  man." 

Then  he  has  unfaiHng  humanity.  A  great  heart 
pulses  in  all  that  he  says.  And  you  feel  that  in  spite 
of  many  eccentricities  the  heart  is  constrained  by  the 
love  of  Christ.     **  When  the  eccentricity  seems  great- 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  129 

est,"  says  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  *'  the  centrifugal  force 
is  checked  and  the  star  is  held  in  its  orbit  by  the 
attraction  of  the  sun  of  righteousness."  **  The  fac- 
ulty of  seeing  things  to  love  in  individuals  and  of  tak- 
ing them  into  his  personal  regard  is  the  tap-root  of 
his  influence.  He  sways  the  masses  and  wins  their 
heart  just  because  to  him  there  are  no  masses." 

The  statue  of  Mr.  Beecher  in  Brooklyn  beautifully 
tells  the  story  of  his  life. 

"  On  a  pedestal  of  dark  Quincy  granite  rises  the 
statue  of  Mr.  Beecher,  of  heroic  size,  and  represent- 
ing; him  as  a  man  of  great  courage  and  sympathy. 
Mr.  Beecher  stands  with  overcoat  on,  and  his  soft 
felt  hat  in  hand,  as  if  he  had  stopped  for  a  moment 
in  a  walk,  or  was  about  to  address  an  outdoor  assem- 
bly. On  the  pedestal  is  the  figure  of  a  negro  girl 
raising  a  branch  of  palm  to  show  the  gratitude  of 
her  people.  There  are  also  two  other  graceful  figures 
representing  two  white  children,  a  boy  seated  and  en- 
deavoring to  support  the  figure  of  a  girl,  who  is  try- 
ing to  push  a  garland  up  to  the  plinth."  ^ 

The  last  night  Mr.  Beecher  preached  in  Plymouth 
Church,  he  sat  in  the  pulpit  after  the  congregation  had 
withdrawn,  his  head  sunk  between  his  shoulders  after 
the  typical  picture  of  Napoleon,  listening  to  Mr.  John 
Zundel,  the  organist,  who  had  the  power  of  dispelling 
the  spirits  of  weariness  and  depression.  Two  small 
newsboys  stole  in,  attracted  by  the  music  and  the 
light.  Mr.  Beecher,  finally  noticing  them,  went  down 
into  the  aisle  and  gathering  a  boy  under  each  arm 
went  forth  with  tender  and  sympathetic  interest.  He 
had  the  greatness  of  the  child-like  spirit. 

i"Life  of  Beecher,"  by  Barrows,  p.  514. 


VII 

PHILLIPS  brooks:    the  man  and  the  preacher 

"  A  great  life  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world, 
God's  gift  direct  from  His  own  heart  and  hand,  in- 
stinct with  His  power.  You  may  tell  its  story,  you 
may  study  its  methods  and  motives,  you  may  catch 
its  inspiration,  but  you  cannot  analyze  it  or  imitate 
it,  or  fill  its  place,  or  do  its  work." 

These  words  that  close  the  beautiful  tribute  of  Ar- 
thur Brooks  to  his  greater  brother,  Phillips  Brooks, 
can  hardly  fail  to  voice  the  exact  feeling  of  any  man 
who  tries  to  measure  the  "  foremost-hearted  of  his 
time,"  and  to  give  something  of  the  large  *'  utterance 
of  his  living  breath." 

Phillips  Brooks  was  blessed  in  his  birth  and  train- 
ing. Generations  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking, 
of  simple  piety  and  generous  humanity  lived  in  his 
life.  Like  Emerson,  he  had  back  of  him  a  long  line 
of  Puritan  ministers.  He  was  a  child  of  the  proph- 
ets and  of  the  covenant.  He  was  the  eighth  genera- 
tion from  John  Cotton,  the  father  of  the  New  Eng- 
land theology.  His  great-grandfather  was  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Phillips,  one  of  the  founders  of  Phillips 
Academy,  Andover;  and  his  grandmother,  the  wife  of 
Samuel  Phillips,  a  rarely  beautiful  woman  and  a  gifted 
writer  of  letters,  was  the  chief  donor  to  Andover 
Theological  Seminary.  Wendell  Phillips  was  his  uncle. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  the  child  of  such  an  ancestry  should 

130 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  131 

be  dowered  with  the  love  of  truth,  and  an  expressive 
soul. 

Born  in  1835  in  Boston,  he  prepared  for  college 
in  the  Boston  Latin  School  and  entered  Harvard  at 
sixteen.  I  need  hardly  say  that  the  lad  had  the  most 
careful  and  thorough  training.  His  home  was  the 
qenter  of  large  intellectual  interests,  of  broad  outlook 
upon  men  and  events,  made  possible  by  the  scorn  of 
frivolities  or  foolish  conventionalities  and  a  rigorous 
self-denial  that  subordinated  all  ambitions  and  pleas- 
ures to  mental  and  social  well-being.  It  was  the  train- 
ing of  a  man. 

And  he  entered  Harvard  a;t  a  time  when  the  college 
life  was  devout  yet  inquiring,  a  quickener  of  thought 
and  religion.  Felton  was  still  in  the  chair  of  Greek, 
Agassiz  was  giving  to  nature  a  new  charm,  and  Long- 
fellow and  Lowell  were  in  their  manly  vigor.  And 
beyond  college  walls  were  other  noble  messages  for 
open  hearts.  Emerson  was  calling  men  to  look  deeper 
into  the  heart  of  things  and  Tennyson's  *'  In  Me- 
moriam,"  just  published,  was  the  age  spirit  in  the  deep- 
est matters  of  religion. 

Phillips  Brooks  felt  and  used  the  influences  of  this 
larger  life  that  was  dawning,  yet  without  scorning  the 
heritage  of  the  past.  A  master  of  books,  he  was  still 
more  a  master  of  hearts;  and  he  left  Harvard  at 
twenty  with  honors  enough  for  any  youth,  and  best 
of  all  a  simple  and  noble  nature,  ready  for  any  call 
of  the  highest  use. 

The  call  to  the  life  work  soon  came;  and  after  a 
short  experience  as  teacher  in  the  Boston  Latin  School 
we  find  him  at  Alexandria,  Virginia,  a  theological 
school  of  the  Evangelical  or  Low  Church  party.  We 
know  in  his  Lectures  on  Preaching  the  emphasis  he 


132  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

put  here  on  study  as  the  condition  of  true  spiritual 
power.  His  friends  of  these  days  speak  of  his  grasp 
of  truth  and  rare  spiritual  insight;  but  he  himself 
refers  to  the  time  as  one  of  hazy  views  and  faltering 
speech.  When  called  upon  to  speak  to  his  fellow 
students,  he  shrank  from  voicing  an  experience  upon 
which  he  had  barely  entered,  and  modestly  took  for 
his  subject  "  Some  thoughts  on  Poetry." 

His  college  friends  could  not  understand  his  choice 
of  a  profession  that  to  them  seemed  bare  and  nar- 
row and  uneventful.  He  chose  it  blindly  in  part,  as 
the  only  sphere  where  a  life  so  large  as  his  could  find 
its  freedom  and  its  joy.  And  in  this  choice  God  was 
working  to  use  the  largest  life  of  the  generation  to 
clarify  and  unify  the  forces  of  faith.  I  quote  again 
from  the  words  of  his  brother:  **  Descended  through 
a  long  line  of  Congregational  ministers,  with  Puritan 
blood  and  traditions  constituting  the  very  essence  of 
his  heritage,  he  was  born  at  a  time  when  the  stern 
dogmatic  faith  had  received  a  staggering  blow  in  the 
development  of  Unitarianism  in  its  central  citadel. 
Devout  souls,  which  had  been  brought  up  with  the 
thought  of  the  supremacy  of  Christ,  felt  themselves 
under  the  influence  of  the  new  Unitarian  teaching, 
thrown  back  upon  the  internal  evidence  of  their  per- 
sonal love  to  Him.  Holding  still,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  and  with  more  or  less  precision  to  old  state- 
ments, they  counted  the  great  fact  which  these  state- 
ments enshrined  more  precious  and  evident  than  ever. 
And  in  that  atmosphere  of  personal  devotion  to  a 
loving  Saviour  and  of  dependence  upon  Him,  Phillips 
Brooks  lived  and  grew  as  a  child.  That  love  to 
Christ  which  glowed  in  his  words  and  flashed  in  his 
eye  was  caught  from  a  mother's  lips,  and  was  read 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  133 

with  boyish  eyes  as  the  central  power  of  a  mother's 
soul  and  life.  I  may  not  say  more,  nor  lift  any  fur- 
ther the  veil  which  separates  a  holy  of  holies,  into 
which  we  loved  to  enter  with  an  awe  which  we  could 
not  understand.  No  revolt  from  influences  under 
which  he  had  been  trained,  no  memory  of  controver- 
sial theology,  could  have  been  the  power  of  that  sweet 
and  easy  belief  in  Christ  as  the  personal  Saviour,  any 
more  than  the  fires  of  Vesuvius  can  be  turned  to  warm 
the  domestic  hearth.  But  the  positive  love  for  Christ 
in  the  midst  of  a  community  where  the  right  of  con- 
trary and  conflicting  statements  was  fully  allowed 
and  abundantly  used,  accounts  for  the  clear  and  warm 
statements  of  the  Christian  faith  by  which  the  world 
has  been  made  the  better." 

His  first  charge  was  the  Church  of  the  Advent 
in  Philadelphia,  from  whence  he  went  to  the  rector- 
ship of  Holy  Trinity  in  the  same  city,  the  year  the 
Civil  War  began.  And  here  a  phase  of  his  ministry 
appeared,  in  its  spirit  true  of  the  man  always,  and 
yet  never  again  brought  out  in  such  prominence  by 
current  events.  He  was  in  an  atmosphere  of  timid 
and  compromising  conservatism,  of  secret  sympathy 
with  slavery  as  an  aristocratic  institution,  fearful  and 
watchful  lest  the  pulpit  should  be  defiled  by  the  spirit 
of  party.  A  braver  soul  than  this  young  rector  never 
stood  in  an  American  pulpit.  He  threw  the  whole 
force  of  his  ardent  youth,  of  his  subhme  faith,  on  the 
side  of  liberty  and  nationality.  His  pulpit  fairly 
flamed  with  the  scorn  of  selfish  indifference,  and  with 
the  challenge  td  Christian  citizenship.  The  State  was 
not  a  social  compact  but  a  divine  organism  and  they 
who  were  threatening  it  were  laying  hands  upon  the 
very  ark  of  God,     *'  His  life  was  one  constant  oppo- 


134  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

sition  to  all  that  tended  to  obscure  the  ideal  of  the 
nation's  existence."  And  this  breadth  of  interest  was 
carried  throughout  his  ministry. 

It  has  been  said,  perhaps  with  some  truth,  that 
Phillips  Brooks  was  an  individualist  and  had  little 
sense  in  his  ministry  of  society  as  a  whole.  He  did 
believe  that  the  divine  life  in  the  souls  of  men  would 
work  out  a  new  order  of  life  and  so  he  has  no  formal 
word  to  society  as  a  unit;  but  whatever  concerned 
society,  education,  freedom,  philanthropy,  stirred  his 
heart  and  won  his  quick  allegiance. 

In  1869,  he  became  the  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
Boston,  and  for  twenty-one  years  labored  there  with 
increasing  power  and  joy. 

The  church  itself  in  its  strength  and  beauty  be- 
came a  fitting  symbol  of  the  man.  It  was  not  lacking 
in  organization,  but  the  life  was  more  than  the  form. 
It  was  not  lacking  in  loyalty  to  its  denomination,  but 
devotion  to  the  spiritual  ideal  of  the  church  largely 
consumed  the  dross  of  party  and  sect.  It  became  in 
a  very  true  sense  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Boston. 
Diversities  of  faith  and  life  found  there  their  unity  and 
their  inspiration  in  visions  of  their  common  Lord. 
The  higher  life  of  the  city  received  its  interpretation 
and  its  strongest  impulse  in  the  strength  and  compre- 
hensiveness of  the  Gospel  there  preached.  Weary, 
baffled,  beaten  souls  looked  there  for  their  hope.  Men 
in  the  press  of  business,  under  the  burden  of  civil  and 
financial  responsibilities  found  their  strength  to  be  true 
and  patient  and  brave.  Natures  in  the  stress  and 
strain  of  subtle  speculations,  tormented  by  problems 
that  refused  to  be  stated  in  easy  and  conventional 
forms  of  faith,  found  the  simplicity  of  a  life  into 
which  God  really  entered. 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  135 

It  was  all  because  a  great  soul  stood  in  the  Trinity 
pulpit  and  spoke  with  men  as  they  really  were  and 
brought  God  to  them,  or  rather  made  them  feel  that 
God  was  with  them.  It  was  no  new  message,  but  the 
eternal  truth  brought  through  a  great  personality  and 
in  a  way  that  searched  the  consciousness  of  the  gen- 
eration to  its  lowest  depth. 

Men  were  not  slow  to  perceive  that  a  prophet  had 
once  more  arisen.  Let  a  man  speak,  who  bears  wit- 
ness of  what  he  has  seen  and  heard,  who  has  a  living 
message,  and  not  the  scribes'  dull  repetition  of  yes- 
terdays, and  the  people  are  bound  to  hear.  The  im- 
prisoned King  will  answer  to  the  voice  of  the  min- 
strel. 

As  early  as  1876  his  first  volume  of  sermons  was 
published  and  widely  read  on  both  sides  the  sea. 
Even  then  men  called  him  the  Robertson  of  the  Amer- 
ican pulpit.  He  contradicts  his  own  statement  that  a 
sermon  that  is  good  to  hear  is  not  good  to  read.  Vol- 
umes of  his  sermons  are  almost  as  common  as  great 
works  of  fiction,  and  his  face  looks  its  benediction 
from  walls  wherever  the  speech  of  Chaucer  and 
Shakespeare,  of  Milton  and  Wordsworth  is  loved.  In 
1877,  he  gave  his  **  Lectures  on  Preaching"  at  Yale 
Seminary,  laying  bare  as  far  as  one  man  can  to 
others  the  secret  of  his  power.  There  is  no  better 
book  to  store  in  the  mind  and  lay  on  the  heart,  and  I 
might  say,  go  to  God  with.  It  can  make  no  man  a 
preacher,  but  any  man  who  reads  it  and  does  not 
**  catch  something  of  the  divine  sunlight  which  flooded 
every  corner  of  his  being,"  is  hardly  fit  to  preach. 

He  frequently  visited  England  and  the  Continent 
during  his  vacations.  He  loved  the  storied  places  and 
the  rich  memorials  of  life :  they  appealed  to  his  imagi- 


136  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

nation  and  deepened  his  sense  of  oneness  with  his 
fellows.  He  frequently  preached  in  the  English 
churches,  in  Westminster  Abbey  and  St.  Paul's,  in 
the  Temple  and  Christ  Church,  was  honored  by  both 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  was  reverenced  and  loved 
there  as  at  home. 

The  work  of  a  great  church  was  only  a  part  of  his 
care.  His  voice  and  pen  were  at  the  service  of  men 
and  he  gave  himself  without  stint.  Dedication  ser- 
mons and  anniversary  addresses  and  words  to  college 
men  were  a  yearly  thing.  In  all  his  outside  work,  he 
loved  nothing  better  than  his  service  to  his  own  Alma 
Mater,  as  resident  preacher.  The  first  public  service 
that  stirred  the  multitude  and  attracted  wide  attention 
was  his  prayer  at  the  dedication  of  the  Memorial  Hall 
at  Harvard  in  '69,  when  Lowell  gave  his  Commemora- 
tion Ode,  the  high  water  mark  of  American  poetry. 
And  his  sermons  in  the  college  Chapel  and  his  fa- 
miliar conversations  with  men  in  his  own  rooms  on 
the  difficulties  and  hopes  of  life  and  the  divine  fitness 
of  the  Gospel  gave  him  a  sweet  joy  and  a  sense  of 
service  to  his  generation  that  came  from  nothing  else 
in  life. 

He  was  above  everything  else  a  minister  to  young 
manhood.  He  commanded  their  admiration,  inter- 
preted their  life,  set  before  them  the  noblest  ideals  and 
helped  to  turn  the  tide  of  spiritual  life  at  Harvard. 
He  made  it  hard  for  young  men  to  doubt  the  essen- 
tial truth  of  Christianity,  and  their  own  divine  ca- 
pacity. 

During  one  term  of  his  residence,  a  certain  fast  set 
had  spent  the  night  in  dissipation.  The  morning  light 
revealed  hollow  eyes  and  wan  faces,  and  men  who  did 
not  care  to  look  into  their  own  hearts.     There  was  a 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  137 

knock  at  the  door  and  the  beaming  face  of  Phillips 
Brooks  entered.  He  saw  the  situation  at  a  glance  but 
no  word  of  censure  fell  from  his  lips.  With  the  won- 
derful fascination  of  his  speech,  he  poured  out  the 
natural  interest  of  his  heart  for  the  College,  for  their 
lives,  for  young  men.  And  then  as  he  left,  he  said 
with  his  great  searching  eyes  and  hearty  tones: 
**  Well,  boys,  it  doesn't  pay,  does  it  ?  "  And  in  that 
presence  their  sin  turned  black  before  their  eyes,  they 
felt  it  to  be  unworthy  of  their  manhood. 

He  was  open  to  every  life.  Mothers  whose  sons 
were  leaving  home  for  the  city  wrote  him  concerning 
the  temptations  of  their  boys  and  asking  his  interest. 
Young  men  in  college,  whose  natures  had  been  stirred 
by  his  message,  poured  out  their  hearts  to  him.  One 
of  our  best  known  graduates,  then  a  senior  in  college, 
was  recalled  to  his  purpose  of  the  ministry  by  the  read- 
ing of  a  sermon  and  the  correspondence  that  followed 
it.  Ministers  and  leaders  from  many  churches  and 
lands  asked  questions  of  him,  who  seemed  to  know 
their  life  so  well,  and  yet  to  live  on  a  height  where 
many  of  its  perplexities  were  made  clear.  And  to 
this  ever  increasing  number  of  souls  he  ministered 
with  unwearied  service.  Postal  cards  he  never  used, 
and  every  writer  received  a  carefully  written  answer 
in  Mr.  Brooks'  own  hand. 

A  friend  who  happened  to  enter  his  study  one  day, 
tells  of  the  great  heap  of  letters  which  lay  open  be- 
fore the  great  preacher.  **  Among  all  these  letters," 
he  said  to  the  friend,  *'  which  I  have  answered  or  shall 
answer,  not  one  appertains  to  my  parish.  All  are 
from  persons  outside  the  bounds  of  Trinity,  and  most 
of  them  from  persons  outside  the  bounds  of  Boston." 
And  his  doors  were  open  to  any  who  needed  his  help. 


138  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

He  belonged  to  the  people.  Blood,  culture,  station, 
wealth,  all  the  influences  that  make  smaller  men  aris- 
tocrats, only  broadened  his  sympathies.  He  was  a 
man  of  the  people,  because  he  knew  and  believed  in 
the  essential  worth  of  man.  He  was  never  greater 
than  when  he  ministered  without  a  thought  of  conde- 
scension to  some  humble  toiler,  or  sent  some  poor 
mother  out  for  an  hour  of  rest  or  recreation  in  the 
parks  while  he  cared  for  the  baby.  **  The  common 
people  loved  him,  and  claimed  him  with  a  frank  and 
pathetic  confidence."  A  cab-man  exclaimed  to  a  friend 
on  the  street,  the  day  of  his  death,  "  Our  dear  Bishop 
is  dead."  A  messenger  boy  said,  **  Isn't  it  too  bad 
that  good  priest  is  dead  ?  "  When  asked  by  a  gentle- 
man who  it  was,  the  boy  simply  answered,  **  Why,  Fa- 
ther Brooks,  didn't  you  know  ?  "  On  the  streets,  in 
the  shops  and  homes,  among  stablemen  and  cab-driv- 
ers, everywhere,  the  tidings  of  Phillips  Brooks'  death 
awakened  a  genuine  sorrow.  On  the  day  of  the 
funeral  a  working  man  in  rough  working  attire  gazed 
a  moment  at  the  body,  and  turned  aside,  his  face 
drenched  with  tears.  A  poor  woman,  ill-clad,  pressed 
her  way  through  the  throng,  laid  a  handful  of  roses  on 
the  coffin,  and  withdrew,  weeping  bitterly. 

I  had  almost  forgotten  to  speak  of  Bishop  Brooks. 
The  simple  narrative  of  his  life  with  which  I  began 
has  in  spite  of  me  gone  deeper.  It  seems  impossible 
to  say  anything  about  him  without  touching  something 
of  the  life  itself.  To  those  outside  the  Episcopal  pol- 
ity, his  election  to  the  office  of  Bishop  in  '91  seemed 
the  confining,  not  the  enlarging,  of  the  man.  He  was 
our  preacher,  we  did  not  wish  him  to  be  any  church's 
Bishop.  But  he  did  not  regard  it  so,  and  no  doubt 
he  knew  best. 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  139 

He  was  so  independent  in  manhood,  so  simple  and 
real  in  manner  and  dress  and  ideal  of  the  ministry,  so 
catholic  in  his  conception  and  treatment  of  the  Church, 
recognizing  the  priesthood  of  all  believers,  the  equal 
rights  of  every  Christian  ordination,  that  his  election 
and  ordination  was  bitterly  opposed  by  all  narrow 
Churchmen,  and  by  many  others  who  conscientiously 
held  his  teaching  to  be  lacking  in  distinctness  and  con- 
sistency of  Christian  doctrine.  He  was  called  traitor 
and  heretic.  But  in  his  simple  faith  and  silence  he 
was  sublime.  He  could  not  seek  a  place.  Like  his 
fellow-townsman,  Charles  Sumner,  he  was  too  self- 
respecting  to  lift  his  hand  or  say  a  word  for  any  place 
in  the  gift  of  man.  Urged  by  his  friends  to  speak  out 
and  relieve  the  minds  of  some  honest  people  who  did 
not  understand  his  position,  he  invariably  replied :  **  I 
will  never  say  a  word  in  vindication  or  explanation  of 
my  opinions.  I  stand  upon  my  record;  and  by  that 
record  I  will  stand  or  fall.  I  have  said  what  I  think 
and  believe  in  my  public  utterances  and  in  my  printed 
discourses,  and  have  nothing  to  retract  or  to  qualify." 

It  was  the  triumph  of  a  simple  and  comprehensive 
faith,  a  prophecy  of  larger  unity  for  the  sadly  divided 
American  Church  that  such  a  man  could  be  put  into 
the  highest  place.  It  was  the  triumph  of  Christian 
manhood  over  party  expediency.  And  he  entered 
upon  the  office  of  Bishop  and  took  hold  of  its  many 
lines  of  care  and  influence  with  the  same  minute  fidel- 
ity lifted  into  the  power  of  great  principle  that  char- 
acterized and  made  masterful  the  rector  of  Trinity 
Church.  No  '  doubt  he  had  hearty  dislike  of  mere 
ecclesiastical  functions.  The  story  is  told  (I  can  not 
vouch  for  its  truth)  that  at  the  first  Convocation  of 
Bishops  after  his  induction  into  office,  Bishop  Potter 


140  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

of  New  York  (his  life  long  friend)  passing  down  the 
aisle  to  his  place  assigned  according  to  seniority,  felt 
a  strong  hand  tugging  at  his  gown  and  heard  a  famil- 
iar voice,  **  Henry,  is  it  always  as  stupid  as  this  ?  " 

However,  Phillips  Brooks  believed  in  his  own  Church 
and  reverenced  the  office  of  Bishop  as  the  highest 
sphere  of  spiritual  influence  and  he  tried  to  make  it 
all  this.  He  had  interest  in  everything  that  concerned 
his  diocese.  He  was  the  friend  and  brother  of  all  his 
clergymen,  his  visits  in  the  manses  looked  forward  to 
with  the  keenest  delight  by  young  and  old.  He  had 
a  passionate  love  of  children,  the  kinship  with  them  of 
a  child  spirit,  and  his  most  beautiful  letters  are  those 
in  which  his  big  boy's  heart  talks  and  frolics  with  his 
little  favorites.  The  two  years  as  Bishop  of  Massa- 
chusetts were  happy  years,  as  happy  as  they  were 
laborious  and  self-denying. 

And  then  came  the  end,  quietly  and  suddenly.  No 
one  seemed  to  think  that  disease  could  fasten  upon  this 
massive  strength.  But  the  life-forces  had  been  con- 
sumed for  men.  And  he  ceased  here.  His  own  wish 
was  answered,  "  Then  I  hope  something  better  will 
come." 

The  higher  life  of  the  nation  was  moved  by  his 
death  as  it  had  not  been  since  the  assassination  of  Lin- 
coln. He  made  a  nation  mourners.  Men  felt  person- 
ally bereaved.  As  some  great  mountain  passes  from 
sight  men  felt  without  a  way-mark,  without  the  lofty 
summit  on  which  eternal  sunshine  rested.  They 
caught  some  glimpse  of  the  fullness  of  the  life  as  the 
blessed  presence  took  its  flight.  In  the  silence  that 
God  had  made  they  felt  the  central  message  that  they 
were  sons  and  that  the  vices  and  low  affinities  of  the 
world  were  unworthy  of  sonship.     It  was  like  a  reli- 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  141 

gious  revival.  "  And  when  the  hour  of  his  burial 
came,  the  leading  business  houses  of  Boston  closed 
their  doors,  members  of  the  Loyal  Legion,  of  which 
Bishop  Brooks  was  a  member,  stood  sentinel  over  his 
remains,  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  was 
represented  by  its  Governor,  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  sent  deputies  to  his  funeral,  the  city  was  repre- 
sented by  its  officials.  Harvard  University  by  its  Presi- 
dent, overseers,  professors,  the  Episcopal  Divinity 
School  by  its  dean  and  teachers  and  scholars,  the 
Diocese  of  Massachusetts  by  its  clergy  and  number- 
less organizations,  and  when  the  great  church  was 
filled  the  multitudes  crowded  Copley  Square  for  a  serv- 
ice in  the  open  air."  And  then  the  most  significant 
and  unprecedented  fact,  twenty  churches  of  other  de- 
nominations were  open  for  funeral  services  at  the 
same  hour.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Phillips 
Brooks  was  the  best  loved  man  of  his  time.  Is  it  not 
because  he  realized  in  his  own  person  so  much  o-f  the 
Christ  life?  And  shall  we  not  thereby  with  hope  and 
thankfulness  measure  the  progress  of  mankind  from 
that  day  —  the  world  crucified  its  best  life  outside  the 
city  wall? 

In  this  simple  outline  of  his  career,  the  man  has 
appeared.  A  more  transparent  career  was  never  lived. 
*'  How  wretched  I  should  be,"  he  said  to  his  friend 
Bishop  Clarke  of  Rhode  Island,  **  if  I  felt  that  I  was 
carrying  about  with  me  any  secret  which  I  would  not 
be  willing  that  all  the  world  should  know."  What 
was  the  real  man?  the  elements  of  greatness  and  holy 
power?  I  wish  that  in  a  few  strokes  I  could  make 
the  man  stand  before  you. 

He  was  the  most  notable  preacher  of  the  generation 
—  yet   a  greater   man.     The   man   was   back   of   the 


142  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

preacher.     It     ^yas     unconsciously    a    self -revelation. 

You  remember  his  definition :  **  Truth  through  per- 
sonality is  our  description  of  real  preaching.  Truth 
must  come  really  through  the  person,  not  merely  over 
his  lips,  not  merely  into  his  understanding  and  out 
through  his  pen.  It  must  come  through  his  character, 
his  affections,  his  whole  intellectual  and  moral  being." 
**  And  the  preparation  for  the  ministry ;  it  is  nothing 
less  than  the  making  of  a  man.'*  And  the  man  —  the 
ideal?  He  must  be  a  man  of  personal  piety,  a  deep 
possession  in  his  own  soul  of  the  faith  and  hope  and 
resolution  which  he  is  to  offer  to  his  fellow  men  for 
their  new  life.  A  man  of  mental  and  spiritual  un- 
selfishness, who  conceives  of  truth  with  reference  to 
its  communication,  and  receives  any  spiritual  blessing 
as  a  trust  for  others.  A  man  of  hopefulness;  a 
healthy  body  with  the  perfectly  sound  soul.  And  then 
the  power  by  which  the  man  loses  himself,  and  be- 
comes but  the  sympathetic  atmosphere  between  the 
truth  on  one  side  of  him,  and  the  man  on  the  other 
side  of  him.  And  then  he  sums  it  up  in  the  noble 
words :  "  Pray  for  and  work  for  fullness  of  life  above 
everything  else ;  full  red  blood  in  the  body ;  full  honesty 
and  truth  in  the  mind;  and  the  fullness  of  a  grateful 
love  for  the  Saviour  in  your  heart."  No  man  ap- 
proached nearer  his  ideal,  and  no  man  had  more  of 
the  Pauline  spirit,  **  I  count  not  myself  to  have  appre- 
hended." 

He  had  a  body  that  was  the  fit  temple  and  type  of 
the  great  soul.  His  presence  was  glorious.  The 
strength  and  simple  dignity  and  unfailing  gentleness 
of  his  person  commanded  the  respect  of  the  strong 
and  the  love  of  the  weak.  He  had  essentially  the 
mind  and  feelings  of  the  poet.     He  knew  the  great 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  143 

poets  and  loved  them  and  they  ministered  to  him.  He 
saw  vividly  and  felt  profoundly.  This  was  the  inter- 
pretative power  of  spiritual  things.  *'  His  sense  of 
God  was  the  most  complete  and  constant  I  have  ever 
known  in  any  soul  " —  the  testimony  of  a  close  friend. 
He  was  like  Tennyson's  poet: 

He  saw  through  life  and  death, 
Through  good  and  ill: 
He  saw  through  his  own  soul. 
The  marvel  of  the  Eternal  Will 
An  open  scroll  before  him  lay. 

He  was  a  passionate  lover  of  nature,  not  a  dissector 
of  her  dead  forms,  but  a  lover  of  her  living  forces. 
Nature  had  a  soul  to  him,  and  spoke  a  message  to  his 
soul.  "  He  clothed  his  thoughts  in  the  drapery  of 
nature,  finding  his  material  in  the  ocean,  with  all  its 
suggestions  of  majesty  and  might  —  in  the  sky  with 
its  ever  shifting  clouds  and  radiant  sunsets  —  in  the 
earth  with  its  hills  and  valleys,  and  silver  streams 
and  nestling  hamlets.  Every  sound  in  nature  helped 
to  give  some  musical  tone  to  his  thoughts;  the  thun- 
der and  the  storm,  the  sighing  of  the  breeze,  the  sing- 
ing of  the  birds  in  spring-time,  the  rustle  of  the  corn- 
field —  all  were  to  him  God's  symbols,  God's  language ; 
and  he  used  them  all  to  give  Hfe  and  fullness  to  the 
mighty  spiritual  truths  which  he  was  called  to  pro- 
claim." 

He  was  a  student  of  life  and  history,  and  knew  the 
directive  movements  of  thought  and  events.  He  was 
not  lacking  in  logical  faculty  and  could  follow  ab- 
struse and  subtle  processes  with  accuracy  and  pleas- 
ure. He  had  an  organizing  mind  that  loved  order  and 
made  the  details  of  thought  and  duty  the  servants 


144  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

of  great  designs.  He  was  thinker,  philosopher,  poet, 
logician,  orator,  master  of  affairs.  And  yet  he  was 
none  of  these,  or  rather  more  than  these. 

The  supreme  quality  of  his  manhood  —  was  the 
great  heart.  It  was  love  that  made  him  great. 
Christ's  love  for  him  —  that  purified  the  heart,  en- 
nobled it  and  poured  it  forth  in  great  tides  of  pity  and 
sympathy  for  men.  He  stands  out  as  the  marked  man 
of  the  American  pulpit  in  his  enthusiasm  for  human- 
ity. Love  in  him,  as  Paul  declares,  was  the  **  bond 
of  perfectness."  It  was  the  crowning,  supreme  vir- 
tue, the  force  that  controlled  and  harmonized  all  other 
faculties;  that  kept  them  from  selfish  and  perverted 
use  —  made  them  servants  of  the  soul,  compelled  them 
to  add  their  forces  to  the  single  purpose  and  blessed- 
ness of  helping  men.  A  man  with  such  a  purpose, 
such  a  passion  can  never  fail. 

And  this  was  the  man  who  always  spoke  in  his 
sermons.  It  was  Phillips  Brooks  and  nobody  else. 
Everything  about  him  was  personal  and  original  yet 
harmonious.  The  impetuous  speech  was  the  outpour- 
ing of  great  thoughts  driven  by  great  emotions.  The 
style,  simple,  pictorial,  musical,  was  intensely  individ- 
ual. He  rarely  quoted.  You  feel  that  life  is  here 
in  its  breadth  of  interests,  but  the  contributions  of 
a  thousand  forms  all  well  forth  from  the  fountain  of 
his  own  being. 

It  is  rich  and  full  with  the  fullness  of  his  own 
vision  of  truth  and  the  richness  of  his  own  sympa- 
thies. 

His  humanness  —  the  fellowship  with  the  deeper  life 
of  men,  his  profound  sense  of  God  in  His  world  — 
the  strength  and  flow  of  symbol  and  phrase  are  well 
seen  in  a  single  paragraph  from  *'  The  Sea  of  Glass 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  145 

mingled  with  fire." — 4:  113.     The  permanent  value  of 
trial. 

*'  When  a  man  conquers  his  adversaries  and  his  diffi- 
culties, it  is  not  as  if  he  never  had  encountered  them. 
Their  power,  still  kept,  is  in  all  his  future  life.  They 
are  not  only  events  in  his  past  history,  they  are  ele- 
ments in  all  his  present  character.  His  victory  is 
colored  with  the  hard  struggle  that  won  it.  His  sea 
of  glass  is  always  mingled  with  fire,  just  as  this  peace- 
ful crust  of  the  earth  on  which  we  live,  with  its  wheat 
fields  and  vineyards,  and  orchards,  and  flower  beds,  is 
full  still  of  the  power  of  the  convulsion  that  wrought 
it  into  its  present  shape,  of  the  floods  and  volcanoes 
and  glaciers  which  have  rent  it,  or  drowned  it,  or  tor- 
tured it.  Just  as  the  whole  fruitful  earth,  deep  in  its 
heart,  is  still  mingled  with  the  ever-burning  fire  that 
is  working  out  its  chemical  fitness  for  its  work,  just 
so  the  life  that  has  been  overturned  by  the  strong  hand 
of  God,  filled  with  the  deep  revolutionary  forces  of 
suflFering,  purified  by  the  strong  fires  of  temptation, 
keeps  its  long  discipline  forever,  roots  in  that  dis- 
cipline the  deepest  growths  of  the  most  sunny  and 
luxuriant  spiritual  life  that  it  is  ever  able  to  attain," 

I  never  had  the  privilege  of  hearing  him  speak.  I 
must  take  the  word  of  one  who  often  sat  as  a  listener : 

**  The  rapid  utterance,  the  toss  of  the  head,  the  fre- 
quent looking  up  from  the  audience,  the  lack  of  ges- 
tures suited  to  the  word  are  entirely  forgotten  in  the 
communication  of  his  thought  to  the  people.  Even 
the  imposing  physique  is  lost  sight  of.  The  very  form 
of  the  sermon  itself  is  forgotten.  Silently,  gradually, 
the  speech,  whether  written  or  unwritten,  becomes  the 
contact  of  soul  with  soul,  the  wrestling  of  a  master 
in  the  dealing  with  the  whole  of  life,  which  goes  on 


146  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

between  the  preacher  and  those  before  him.  I  have 
never  met  one  who  could  define  the  oratory  of  Bishop 
Brooks.  It  is  the  flowing  together  of  so  many  quaH- 
ties  which  come  out  from  the  man  himself  in  his 
speech  that  it  cannot  be  defined,  and  yet  its  effect  is 
due  to  mental  and  spiritual  laws  that  are  in  happy 
combination.  It  is  his  favorite  principle  of  person- 
ality which  he  once  described  as  the  only  power  in 
which  mystery  can  become  real  and  vital  and  prac- 
tical." 

Bishop  Brooks  has  himself  given  us  an  outline  of 
his  message,  an  epitome  of  his  doctrine.  You  will 
find  it  in  the  last  lecture  on  Preaching,  the  Value  of 
the  Human  Soul. 

*'  The  conviction  that  truth  and  destiny  are  essen- 
tial and  not  arbitrary;  that  Christianity  is  the  per- 
sonal love  and  service  of  Christ;  and  that  salvation 
is  positive,  not  negative." 

All  through  his  preaching  runs  the  idea  of  the  es- 
sential nature  of  Gospel  facts  and  doctrines :  not  so 
because  God  has  decreed  them;  but  decreed  because 
they  are  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  God's  nature 
and  man's  nature.  Take  the  fact  of  Christ's  atoning 
death  as  an  example.  I  quote  from  a  Good  Friday 
sermon  in  the  first  volume. 

"  *  My  God !  My  God !  Why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
me?'  he  cries,  making  his  own  the  words  of  an  old 
Psalm  of  woe.  When  I  read  what  men  have  written 
to  explain  the  meaning  of  Jesus  in  that  cry,  I  always 
feel  anew  how  much  deeper  than  our  comprehension 
went  his  identification  with  humanity  when  He  plunged 
into  the  darkness  of  its  sin. 

*'  He  was  made  flesh.  Into  what  mysterious  contact 
with  the  sinfulness  to  which  the  flesh  of  man  had 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  147 

given   itself   that   being   made    flesh   brought   him,    I 
know  no  man  has  ever  fathomed.     If  I  try  to  fathom 
it  all,  I  can  only  picture  to  myself  the  most  Christ- 
like act,  the  most  Messianic  entrance  into  the  strange 
and  dreadful  fate  of  other  men  which  my  imagination 
can  conceive.     Let  me  suppose  that  the  purest  woman 
in  this  town,  the  most  sensitive  and  scrupulous,  moved 
by  a  sense  of  sisterhood  and  by  a  longing  pity,  gathers 
up  all  her  life,  and  goes  and  lives  among  the  lowest 
and  most  brutal  and  most  foul  savages  that  this  earth 
contains.     As   she  enters  their  land,   she  leaves   her 
own  life  behind.     She  accepts  their  life.     Everything, 
except  their  wickedness,   she  makes   her   own.     She 
sacrifices    her    fastidiousness    every    day.     She   finds 
herself  the  victim  of  habits  which  are  the  consequences 
of    long   years    of    sin.     No    sensibility    that    is    not 
shocked,  no  fine  and  pure  taste  that  is  not  wounded. 
Their  sin  is  awful  to  her,  not  only  because  of  her 
own  purity,  but  because  of  the  keen  understanding 
of  its  awfulness,  which  comes  from  her  profound  one- 
ness of  nature  with  these  sinners.     She  cannot  stand 
ofiE  and  look  at  them  and  work  for  them  from  a  safe 
distance.     She  is  one  of  them  in  their  common  hu- 
manity.    In  every  foul  wickedness  of  theirs  she  suf- 
fers.    She  bears   their  sins   a  heavy  burden   on  her 
heart.     Is  it  strange  that  —  without  any  faithlessness 
to  her  task,  or  any  distrust  of  the  friends  at  home, 
she  cry  out  across  the  sea  to  them,  '  Oh !  why  have 
you    forsaken   me  ? '     Do   not    imagine   that    I    think 
that  any  human  sacrifice  can  truly  image  His  surren- 
der, or  any  human  pain  declare  the  measure  of  His 
woe.     But  this  is  surely  the  best  that  earth  can  show 
us  of  the  kind  of  agony  with  which  the  Christ,  who  in 
His  love,  had  gone  down  to  the  deepest  and  most 


148  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

terrible  depths  of  humanity,  even  to  being  crucified 
between  two  thieves,  seemed  for  a  moment  to  have 
lost  himself,  and  cried  out  to  the  Father,  with  whom 
He  was  eternally  and  inseparably  one,  '  Oh !  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  me?'  If  the  cry  bewilders  us  as  we 
try  to  comprehend  the  deity  to  which  it  appeals,  it 
may  at  least  reveal  to  us  something  of  the  depth  out 
of  which  it  ascends." 

In  this  deeply  spiritual  and  realistic  way  does  Bishop 
Brooks  try  to  get  behind  facts  and  symbols  in  which 
all  the  great  doctrines  of  redemption  are  clothed  in 
the  Scriptures  to  the  essentialness  of  the  truth,  to  that 
which  appeals  irresistibly  to  the  nature  of  the  human 
soul. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  say  whether  he  always  succeeds 
in  this.  Critics  enough  there  are  who  charge  him 
with  mysticism,  with  lack  of  clearness  in  the  doc- 
trines of  the  atonement  and  regeneration.  I  do  not 
think  you  can  get  any  particular  philosophy  of  the 
atonement  out  of  his  sermons,  and  he  certainly  never 
tries  to  tell  us  just  what  regeneration  is  with  the 
minuteness  and  logical  precision  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 

But  it  is  not  true  that  he  is  lacking  in  clearness  of 
conviction  and  definiteness  of  teaching;  only  he  never 
fails  of  the  essential  humility  and  reverence  of  the 
soul  impressed  with  the  vastness  of  truth,  and  that  the 
divine  life  is  greater  than  the  measure  of  man's  mind. 

And  here  is  the  basis  of  his  true  catholicity.  His 
tolerance  —  and  no  man  has  spoken  more  nobly  for 
it  by  Hfe  and  speech  —  is  not  indifference  (to  use  his 
own  analysis)  or  policy,  or  helplessness  or  mere  re- 
spect for  man,  or  spiritual  sympathy ;  but  '*  the  toler- 
ance which  grows  up  in  any  man  who  is  aware  that 
truth  is  larger  than  his   conception  of   it,   and  that 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  149 

what  seems  to  be  other  men's  errors  must  often  be 
other  parts  of  the  truth  of  which  he  has  only  the  por- 
tion, and  that  truth  is  God's  child,  and  the  fortunes 
of  truth  are  God's  care  as  well  as  his.  The  charity 
for  which  he  pleads  is  the  "  love  of  truth  and  the  love 
of  man  harmonized  and  included  in  the  love  of  God." 

It  may  be  that  in  seeking  the  heights  where  con- 
flicting doctrines  and  schools  may  find  their  unity,  he 
ignored  the  steps  first  to  be  taken.  That  he  sought 
that  comprehensiveness  no  one  can  doubt.  In  that 
vision  he  belongs  to  no  school  and  no  sect.  He  is  a 
prophet  of  the  universal  church. 

It  is  pleasant  for  me  to  believe  with  Dr.  Gordon: 
that  *'  he  was  in  too  sublime  haste  to  stop  and  nicely 
adjust  ideas  to  each  other  or  elaborate  them  into  fin- 
ished systems.  He  clearly  saw  that  all  human  think- 
ing, theological  and  philosophical,  even  in  its  highest 
results  is  but  provisional  and  only  for  a  while,  to  be 
superseded  when  the  eternal  day  dawns;  and  with  a 
flash,  he  went  beyond  the  conclusions  of  the  temporal 
mind,  and  anticipated  the  look  of  reality  when  the  im- 
perishable in  human  thought  shall  have  put  on  its  im- 
mortal vesture." 

He  believed  in  the  risen  and  living  Christ.  He  did 
not  rear  the  cross  into  a  monument.  The  most  real 
and  present  friend  in  the  world  was  the  friend  of  sin- 
ners and  the  Lord  of  all  life.  How  true  and  calm 
and  sweet  and  brave  it  made  life! 

**  A  living  Christ,  dear  friends !  "  he  closed  an  Eas- 
ter sermon,  *'  the  old,  ever  new,  ever  blessed  Easter 
truth!  He  liveth;  He  was  dead;  He  is  alive  forever- 
more.  Oh,  that  everything  dead  and  formal  might 
go  out  of  our  creed,  out  of  our  life,  out  of  our  heart 
to-day.    He  is  alive!    Do  you  believe  it?    Wh^t  are 


ISO  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

you  dreary  for,  O  mourner?  What  are  you  hesi- 
tating for,  O  worker?  What  are  you  fearing  death 
for,  O  man?  Oh,  if  we  could  only  lift  up  our  heads 
and  live  with  Him ;  live  new  lives,  high  lives,  lives  of 
hope  and  love  and  holiness,  to  which  death  should  be 
nothing  but  the  breaking  away  of  the  last  cloud,  and 
the  letting  of  the  life  out  to  its  completion." 

There  can  be  no  difference  as  to  the  glory  and  power 
of  his  presentation  of  Christ  and  of  the  Christ-life 
of  the  soul.  His  great  message  after  all  is  the  son- 
ship  of  man,  made  possible  in  the  sonship  of  Christ, 
and  the  fullness  and  blessedness  of  that  life. 

"  Strangely  fascinating  was  his  portrayal  of  the 
Christ-life,  so  real,  so  complete,  so  joyous,  so  possible. 
Men  went  away  wondering  why  they  had  not  known 
it  all  before,  and  most  men  went  away  with  a  new  pur- 
pose in  their  lives."  "  You  are  in  God's  world,"  he 
would  say :  *'  you  are  God's  child.  Those  things  you 
cannot  change;  the  only  peace  and  rest  and  happiness 
for  you  is  to  accept  them  and  rejoice  in  them.  When 
God  speaks  to  you,  you  must  not  make  believe  to  your- 
self that  it  is  the  wind  blowing  or  the  torrent  falling 
from  the  hill.  You  must  know  that  it  is  God.  You 
must  gather  up  the  whole  power  of  meeting  Him. 
You  must  be  thankful  that  life  is  great  and  not  little. 
You  must  listen  as  if  listening  were  your  life.  And 
then,  then  only  can  come  peace.  All  sounds  will  be 
caught  up  into  the  prevailing  richness  of  that  voice 
of  God.  The  lost  proportion  will  be  perfectly  re- 
stored. Discord  will  cease :  harmony  will  be  com- 
plete."    (V:88.) 

He  had  faith  in  men,  in  their  spiritual  capacity,  in 
the  absolute  fitness  of  Christ  to  human  nature  and 
that  God  was  in  Christ  redeeming  the  world. 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  ISI 

*'  To  believe  in  the  Incarnation,  really  to  under- 
stand that  Christ  —  and  yet  to  think  that  we  or  any 
other  men  in  all  the  world  are  essentially  incapable 
of  spiritual  living,  is  an  impossibility/' 

He  says  to  the  young  men  at  Yale :  "  There  is  in 
the  congregation  as  its  heart  and  soul  a  craving  after 
truth.     Believe  in  that." 

His  boundless  hopefulness  —  to  me  the  noblest  les- 
son from  his  life  and  work  —  was  the  necessary  out- 
come of  his  faith. 

No  doubt  it  was  affected  —  or  promoted  by  his 
heredity  and  environment.  His  vigorous  physical 
manhood,  the  ease  of  accomplishment  inherent  in  great 
powers,  the  glad  allegiance  of  multitudes  to  his  word 
—  all  made  hopefulness  easy.  But  it  was  far  deeper 
than  this.  It  was  essentially  a  matter  of  faith  and 
spiritual  living.  It  rested  on  his  visions  and  convic- 
tions, because  he  had  stronger  views  of  truth,  God 
and  man,  than  others  had,  because  he  had  grown  by 
reality  of  thinking  and  unselfish  service,  so  that  like 
some  mountain  peak  he  could  lift  his  head  above  the 
cloud-rack. 

You  have  doubtless  seen  the  picture  of  Bishop 
Brooks  that  represents  almost  the  full  figure ;  the  head 
erect,  a  little  back  of  the  perpendicular,  the  face  look- 
ing through  the  open  window,  and  lit  up  with  the  rays 
of  the  morning  sun.  A  true  picture  and  beautifully 
symbolic  of  the  man  and  his  work.  He  ever  had  his 
face  towards  the  light.  He  was  one,  to  use  the  words 
of  Browning,  the  poet  he  loved  best : 

Who  never  turned  his  back,  but  marched  breast  forward, 
Never  doubted  clouds  would  break: 
Never  dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted, 
Wrong  would  triumph ; 


152  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better; 
Sleep  to  wake. 

Men  have  spoken  contemptuously  of  his  "  eternal 
optimism,"  but  it  was  this  very  optimism,  his  face  ever 
in  the  light,  that  made  men  believe  in  a  higher  world 
and  follow  his  leadership. 

Perhaps  we  do  not  know  how  much  of  God 
Was  walking  with  us. 

Surely  not  forlorn 
Are  men,  when  such  great  overflow  of  heaven 
Brings  down  the  light  of  the  eternal  morn 
Into  the  earth's  deep  shadows,  where  they  plod, 
The  slaves  of  sorrow. 

Something  of  divine 
Was  in  his  nature,  open  to  the  source 
Of  love,  that  master  of  primeval  force, 
As,  answering  freshly  their  unfailing  sign. 
To  the  early  and  the  latter  rain  the  sod 
Lies  bare,  and  drinking  in  by  morn  and  even 
The  precious  dews  that  lift  it  into  flower 
Distilled  again  in  fragrance  every  hour. 

I  think  if  Jesus,  whom  he  loved  as  Lord, 
Were  here  again,  in  such  guise  might  He  go, 
So  bind  all  creeds  as  with  a  golden  cord. 
So  with  the  saint  speak,  with  the  sinner  so. 
And  then  remembering  all  the  torrent's  rush 
Of  praise  and  blessing  o'er  the  listening  hush. 
Remembering  the  lightning  of  the  glance. 
Remembering  the  lifted  countenance 
White  with  the  prophet's  glory  that  it  wore, 
With  the  Holy  Spirit  shining  through  the  clay. 
Prophet  —  yea,  I  say  unto  you,  and  more 
Than  a  prophet  was  with  us  but  yesterday! 

Harriet  Prescott  Spofford. 


VIII 

THE  OLD   AND   NEW   EVANGELISM 

The  first  advances  of  Christianity  have  been  effected 
by  individual  influences.  It  is  not  overlooking  the 
faithful  labors  of  the  many,  the  silent,  permeating  in- 
fluences of  many  beautiful  examples  of  Christian  grace 
to  say  that  the  energy  and  versatility  of  one  or  a  few 
have  made  the  eras  of  spiritual  progress.  Tihe  vic- 
tory over  Arianism  was  won  by  Athanasius,  over 
Pelagianism  by  Augustine.  The  conversion  of  the 
Goths  was  largely  the  work  of  Ulfilas.  The  English 
were  evangelized  by  Augustine  the  monk.  The  Ref- 
ormation begun  by  Wyclif  was  perfected  by  Luther 
and  Zwingli.  Spener,  Wesley,  Whitefield,  Edwards 
inaugurated  the  great  revival  movements  of  modern 
times.  **  It  is  not  meant  that  these  men  were  isolated 
or  sporadic  originators  of  revival  influences.  They 
were  themselves  products  as  well  as  factors:  they 
inherited  and  absorbed  all  previous  vital  Christian 
ideas  and  stood  in  the  line  of  the  organic  development 
of  Christian  doctrine  and  life.  But  it  was  because 
they  were  preeminently  ordained  and  adapted  to  re- 
ceive and  diffuse  those  ideas  and  that  life  that  in  their 
personal  labors  they  were  able  to  give  so  marked  an 
impulse  to  the  spiritual  movement." 

The  great  waves  of  spiritual  impulse  that  we  term 
revivals  have  been  connected  in  their  first  movements 
with  some  prophetic  soul,  that  has  caught  a  new  vi- 
sion of  truth,  or  the  old  truth  in  new  light,  bringing 

153 


154  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

out  some  neglected  fact,  carrying  truth  forward  to 
its  rightful  application;  a  soul  for  the  moment  pos- 
sessed with  its  message,  seeing  nothing  else,  its  whole 
being  stirred  by  it,  giving  the  whole  personality  to 
the  expression  of  the  truth  and  sweeping  the  com- 
munity with  the  sympathetic  contagion  of  his  faith. 

Edwards  was  such  a  soul  in  the  isolated  villages 
of  the  Connecticut  valley.  Just  a  century  later, 
Charles  G.  Finney  did  a  work  of  equal  power  through 
the  scattered  communities  of  Central  New  York.  And 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  Mr. 
Dwight  L.  Moody  reached  thousands  in  our  great 
cities.  These  three  men  stand  for  the  three  stages 
that  have  marked  the  history  of  American  Evangel- 
ism. They  are  men  who  gathered  and  expressed  in 
their  doctrine  and  persons  and  work  the  prophetic 
thought  —  the  spiritual  impulse  of  their  generation. 

Edwards,  as  I  have  already  shown,  taught  the  Sov- 
ereignty of  God  and  the  direct  and  special  imparta- 
tion  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  conversion.  He  brought 
men  into  the  very  presence  of  the  Holy  One  and  made 
men  tremble  before  their  Judge.  He  searched  hu- 
man motives,  and  insisted  on  nothing  less  than  a  heav- 
enly ideal  of  excellence.  And  his  lesser  disciples, 
Hopkins,  Bellamy  down  to  Nettleton,  with  varying  de- 
gree of  emphasis  dwelt  upon  the  same  truths.  Men 
were  urged  to  pray,  to  use  the  means  of  grace,  to 
agonize  and  wait  for  the  wondrous  change  brought 
by  the  sovereign  grace  of  God. 

Mr.  Finney  and  Mr.  Moody  mark  distinct  advances 
in  Christian  doctrine  and  service,  and  of  these  I  would 
especially  speak.  There  are  some  striking  parallels  in 
the  experience  and  work  of  Finney  and  Moody,  and 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  155 

perhaps  just  as  striking  contrasts.  At  any  rate  we 
can  hardly  miss  the  message  of  such  lives.  They  are 
alike  in  coming  from  the  people,  without  the  aid  of 
the  schools;  in  the  singleness,  simplicity  and  earnest- 
ness of  their  message;  in  the  emphasis  they  put  upon 
conduct;  and  in  the  far-readhing  outcome  of  their 
labor,  beyond  the  expected  work  of  an  evangelist. 

Mr.  Charles  G.  Finney  was  a  lawyer,  in  the  fron- 
tier town  of  Adams,  N.  Y.,  without  early  advantages, 
but,  like  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  remarkable  logical  keenness, 
humanity,  wit  and  common  sense,  and  was  not  lack- 
ing in  self -discipline.  He  knew  men  and  nature  — 
and  his  one  book  was  Shakspeare.  His  education 
was  in  the  school  of  life.  He  did  not  own  a  Bible 
until  he  was  thirty.  Then,  apparently,  without  hu- 
man helps,  wrought  upon  by  no  visible  means  —  the 
truth  that  he  must  have  known  in  a  dim  way  from 
childhood  working  with  his  naturally  lofty  spirit  — 
produced  a  change  as  marked  as  Paul's.  In  the  tem- 
ple of  the  woods,  in  the  holy  place  of  his  own  room, 
he  had  visions  of  Christ  as  distinct  and  glorious  as 
met  Saul  on  the  Damascus  road.  His  whole  nature 
was  overpowered  by  them.  In  the  quiet  of  his  room, 
he  would  have  such  views  of  God's  excellence  —  that 
his  desires  would  flow  in  strong  passion  towards  God. 
There  was  but  one  thing  for  such  a  man  to  do.  He 
never  took  up  his  law  books  again,  or  tried  a  single 
case.  He  had  to  speak  what  he  had  seen,  first  in  his 
own  church  — and  the  whole  community  was  soon  in 
the  most  intense  religious  interest.  Then  in  neigh- 
boring villages  —  until  his  labors  were  sought  for  far 
and  near  —  and  without  concert  of  plan  —  by  the  sin- 
gle influence  of  his  overmastering  message  and  pas- 


^ 


156  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

sion  to  reach  men,  Mr.  Finney  stood  as  the  leader 
of  the  most  aggressive  movement  in  the  Church.  His 
pastor,  Mr.  Gale,  a  Princeton  man,  was  ashamed  of 
his  first  sermon.  His  Brethren  in  the  Presbytery, 
though  they  finally  licensed  him,  urged  him  to  go  to 
the  Seminary.  But  Finney  was  right  in  ignoring  the 
opinion  of  men  bound  by  ecclesiastical  opinion  and 
habit  —  and  leading  his  own  free  life.  He  made  the 
Bible  his  one  study,  and  with  the  constant  prayer 
for  the  Spirit's  light,  he  concentrated  his  remark- 
able powers  upon  its  interpretation,  and  used  its  truths 
to  convince  men  as  a  lawyer  uses  his  evidence  to  win 
his  case. 

Men  were  not  accustomed  to  hear  religious  truth 
spoken  in  that  way.  God,  sin,  atonement,  repentance 
were  made  as  real  as  houses  and  lands.  He  ignored 
the  terminology  of  the  religious  schools,  and  the  man- 
ner of  the  pulpit,  and  clothed  his  truth  in  homely, 
everyday  speech,  and  with  illustrations  that  would 
appeal  to  the  experience  of  his  hearers. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  his  preaching  was  his 
reful  and  thorough  reasoning  —  the  lawyer's  habit 
of  mind.  *'  He  carefully  and  slowly  laid  down  and 
discussed  the  fundamental  proposition  upon  which  ac- 
tion was  to  be  based,  so  that  whatever  movement  of 
feeling  there  was  should  be  well  grounded  in  a  per- 
ception of  the  truth.  He  always  took  pains  to  under- 
stand the  position  occupied  by  those  he  was  endeavor- 
ing to  persuade,  and  was  careful  not  to  proceed  with 
his  argument  till  he  was  sure  he  had  found  a  common 
ground  of  argument  respecting  facts  and  principles. 
Thus  the  intense  feeling  following  his  preaching  was 
the  result  of  his  exposition  of  truth,  and  not  of  any 
great   attempt   to   produce   excitement."     His   logical 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  157 

powers  were  not  spent  in  the  discussion  of  abstract 
truth  —  in  trying  to  unfold  the  mysterious  works  of 
the  Eternal,  but  in  the  analysis  of  the  facts  of  the 
Gospel  and  the  facts  of  human  experience.  In  the 
latter  he  was  a  master,  fearless  and  minute,  and  even 
personal,  passing  at  times  what  would  seem  the  cour- 
tesies of  public  speech.  But  his  most  searching  word 
was  with  largeheartedness,  with  no  spirit  of  bitter- 
ness or  personal  spite.  He  treated  of  concrete  sins. 
He  discussed  them  so  minutely,  he  hunted  them  to 
their  hiding  places,  he  brought  them  out  into  the  light 
of  heaven,  he  held  them  up  unsparingly  to  the  judg- 
ment of  God,  that  sometimes  the  whole  audience  would 
be  bowed  under  the  conviction  of  sin. 

In  a  sermon  on  the  Seared  Conscience  he  had  ninety- 
five  specifications  of  the  things  that  may  sear  the  con- 
science. He  preached  the  sermon  at  Oberlin  as  an 
old  man  and  has  this  specific  and  personal  reference, 
on  the  sin  of  heedlessly  borrowing  tools:  almost  an 
eccentric  example  of  his  concreteness.  **  Just  con- 
sider the  condition  in  which  I  found  myself  yesterday. 
I  engaged  a  number  of  men  to  make  my  garden  and 
put  in  my  crops ;  but  when  I  went  to  look  for  my  farm- 
ing tools,  I  could  not  find  them.  Brother  Mahan 
borrowed  my  plow  some  time  ago,  and  has  forgotten 
to  bring  it  back.  Brother  Morgan  has  borrowed  my 
harrow,  and  I  presume  has  it  still.  Brother  Beecher 
has  my  spade  and  my  hoe,  and  so  my  tools  were  all 
scattered.  Where  many  of  them  are,  no  man  knows. 
I  appeal  to  you,  how  can  society  exist  when  such  a 
simple  duty  as  that  of  returning  borrowed  tools  ceases 
to  rest  as  a  burden  on  the  conscience?  It  is  in  such 
delinquencies  as  these  that  the  real  state  of  our  hearts 
is  brought  to  the  light  of  day." 


158  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

The  minute  analysis  of  motive  and  act  was  not  only 
the  lawyer's  habit,  but  the  outcome  of  his  conception 
of  truth  and  character.  He  held  Edwards*  doctrine 
that  true  virtue  was  the  choice  of  the  ultimate  good 
of  being.  And  thus  each  act  arose  out  of  this  choice 
and  so  was  totally  good  or  bad.  And  so  his  effort  was 
constantly  to  bring  out  the  nature  of  each  choice,  and 
show  its  bearing  upon  the  ultimate  object  of  worthy 
being.  His  appeal  was  to  reason  and  conscience.  He 
believed  that  there  was  absolute  correspondence  be- 
tween the  Gospel  and  the  teachings  of  man's  moral 
nature.  He  begins  with  man  and  makes  the  constant 
appeal  to  the  moral  sense.  His  whole  skill  is  used 
in  unfolding  the  evidences,  and  then  narrowing  the 
sphere  of  immediate  action  so  as  to  press  immediate 
duty.  And  in  an  age  when  doctrine  had  been  exalted, 
when  the  whole  thought  of  religion  had  dwelt  upon 
the  transcendent  God  —  his  nature  of  grace  —  and 
religion  was  largely  an  otherworldliness,  Finney's 
specification  of  sin  and  duty  made  religion  intensely 
practical,  and  aroused  consciences  that  had  easily  slept 
under  discussions  of  theological  subtleties. 

*'  He  will  never  be  a  preacher,"  says  Dr.  Stalker, 
"  who  does  not  know  how  to  get  at  the  conscience. 
We  are  making  a  great  mistake  about  this.  We  are 
preaching  to  the  fancy,  to  the  imagination,  to  the  in- 
tellect, to  feeling,  to  will;  and  no  doubt  all  these  must 
be  preached  to;  but  it  is  in  the  conscience  that  the 
battle  is  to  be  won  or  lost.  In  many  parts  of  Chris- 
tendom it  is  dying  out;  and  where  it  is  extinct,  the 
whole  work  of  Christianity  has  to  be  done  over  again." 

When  he  had  presented  the  doctrine  and  the  duty, 
he  pressed  men  with  every  motive  that  he  could  com- 
mand for  immediate  decision.     And  here  the  methods 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  159 

which  sometimes  were  used,  and  aroused  hostile  criti- 
cism, were  nothing  more  than  the  effort  to  secure 
action  —  however  small  —  which  would  place  men  in 
the  way  of  repentance  and  faith.  He  has  given  him- 
self the  practical  statement  of  his  doctrine.  **  If  sin- 
ners are  to  be  regenerated  by  the  influence  of  truth, 
argument  and  persuasion,  then  ministers  can  see  what 
they  have  to  do,  and  how  it  is  they  are  to  be  workers 
together  with  God.  So  also  sinners  may  see  that  they 
are  not  to  wait  for  a  physical  regeneration  or  influ- 
ence, but  must  submit  to  and  embrace  the  truth,  if 
they  ever  expect  to  be  saved.  Ministers  should  aim 
at  and  expect  the  regeneration  of  sinners  on  the  spot, 
and  before  they  leave  the  house  of  God."  Here  is  the 
foundation  of  his  effort  in  revival  work.  He  pressed 
every  truth  home  upon  others  as  though  he  expected 
to  convert  them  himself.  He  urged  upon  all  Chris- 
tians the  duty  of  prayer  for  the  aid  of  the  Spirit.  He 
threw  upon  the  soul  the  responsibility  of  immediately 
accepting  or  rejecting  the  truth  then  apprehended. 

Of  course  the  personality  of  the  man  had  much  to 
do  with  his  power  on  his  audiences.  He  was  a  splen- 
did man  physically,  with  exceptional  grace  of  manner, 
and  clear,  flexible  voice.  He  had  no  mannerisms,  per- 
fect naturalness,  and  the  actor's  power  of  represent- 
ing character  or  scene.  He  must  have  been  a  sort 
of  John  B.  Go  ugh  in  the  pulpit. 

It  is  not  hard  to  trace  the  effect  of  his  work.  God 
was  in  it,  and  it  left  a  lasting  impress  for  the  higher 
life  of  the  people. 

There  were"  extravagances  connected  with  some  of 
the  services,  and  poor  imitators  followed  his  path  that 
sometimes  brought  discredit  upon  the  cause  of  truth. 
Men  of  the  theology  of  the  Alexanders  and  Hodges 


l6o  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

discredited  his  work  because  of  his  doctrine  of  hu- 
man responsibility,  calling  for  the  immediate  and  de- 
cisive act  of  the  will.  But  this  was  the  very  truth 
that  made  him  a  prophet-voice  and  profoundly  stirred 
the  generation.  His  work  carried  Christians  to  a 
higher  pitch  of  experience,  renewed  churches  and 
reached  multitudes  that  were  practically  ignored  by 
the  Church.  He  reached  strong  men  especially.  At 
one  time  nearly  the  entire  bar  of  Rochester  was  con- 
verted. Forty  men  went  into  the  ministry  from  his 
labor  in  that  city. 

A  young  business  man  of  Auburn  drifted  into  the 
first  church  one  evening,  one  who  had  left  the  church 
on  Mr.  Fiftney's  first  visit,  and  had  helped  to  form 
the  congregation  of  the  second.  He  was  a  distiller 
getting  rich  fast,  at  a  time  when  the  business  was 
generally  thought  respectable.  He  listened  curiously 
at  first,  then  intently  at  the  close  and  earnest  reason- 
ing, was  convinced,  felt  his  sin,  made  his  choice, 
quietly  went  out  and  deliberately  broke  open  the  casks 
and  let  the  liquor  flow  into  the  street.  It  was  an 
example  of  the  practical  godliness  that  flowed  from 
Mr.  Finney's  work.  He  was  not  distinctly  an  anti- 
slavery  advocate,  but  interest  in  the  oppressed  never 
failed  to  be  a  result  of  his  work.  And  in  his  connec- 
tion with  the  Tappans,  the  New  York  Evangelist,  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle,  and  the  founding  and  growth 
of  Oberlin  University,  he  was  not  least  among  the 
forces  that  made  for  an  emancipated  race  and  a  re- 
newed and  purified  conception  of  the  national  life. 
**  For  spiritual  thrift  in  the  individual,  for  the  strength- 
ening of  the  Church,  for  humanity  towards  the  poor» 
the  weak,  the  outcast,  we  need  to  thank  God  for  the 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  l6l 

outpouring  of  the  Spirit  upon  the  labor  of  Mr.  Fin- 
ney." 

Mr.  Dwight  L.  Moody  has  been  the  exponent  and 
leader  of  the  newer  evangelism.  The  story  can  be 
more  briefly  told.  Many  men  now  living  have  heard 
Mr.  Moody ;  his  work  is  open  before  us.  He  too  has 
a  distinct  message,  expressing  the  thought  that  had 
slowly  possessed  the  Christian  consciousness  of  the 
generation.  His  message  did  not  come  from  lonely 
vigil,  from  rapt  meditation  upon  heavenly  things,  but 
out  of  the  toil  and  turmoil,  the  poverty  and  sin  of  a 
great  city.  The  same  compassion  stirred  his  heart 
as  Christ  felt  when  he  looked  upon  the  multitudes, 
scattered  as  sheep  having  no  shepherd.  He  was  so 
full  of  it,  that  he  met  a  stranger  on  the  street  of  Chi- 
cago, and  stopped  him  with  the  glad  word :  "  The 
grace  of  God  has  appeared  to  all  men  bringing  salva- 
tion." And  this  is  Moody's  word,  the  word  that  has 
arrested  the  multitudes  and  turned  their  hearts  to  God. 
The  grace  of  God.  The  love  of  God.  Not  sover- 
eignty, not  personal  responsibility,  but  divine  compas- 
sion. And  it  is  a  new  message  in  the  degree  that  he 
emphasized  it,  and  in  the  degree  to  which  he  aban- 
doned himself  to  it.  He  touched  the  very  heart  of 
the  Gospel,  at  once  bringing  to  bear  upon  men  the 
strongest  and  purest  motive  it  is  possible  for  the  hu- 
man heart  to  feel.  It  is  not  weak  because  of  the 
strong  way  that  he  grasps  it  —  the  compassionate,  suf- 
fering, sacrificing  love  of  God. 

"  If  I  thought  I  could  only  make  the  world  believe 
that  God  is  love,  I  would  only  take  that  text  and  go 
up  and  down  the  earth  trying  to  counteract  what  Satan 


l62  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

has  been  telling  men  —  that  God  is  not  love.  It  would 
not  take  twenty-four  hours  to  make  the  world  come 
to  God,  if  you  could  only  make  them  believe  —  God 
is  love/'  ^ 

Compare  the  themes  of  Mr.  Moody's  sermons  with 
those  of  Edwards',  and  you  will  see  the  changed  em- 
phasis, the  humanness  of  the  message.  In  a  single 
volume,  **  Love  and  Sympathy,  God  is  love,  Christ 
came  to  seek  and  to  save,  Christian  love,"  in  every 
form  the  glad  tidings. 

Here  you  have  Mr.  Moody  at  his  best.  His  great 
unselfish  heart,  not  thinking  of  self,  but  beating  strong 
and  warm  for  the  men  for  whom  Christ  died;  his 
quick  and  subtle  insight  into  truth;  the  simple  and 
homely  idiom,  the  speech  of  the  shop  and  market  and 
street  that  instantly  conveyed  the  thought  and  sym- 
pathy too;  the  truth  in  broad,  simple  object-lessons  of 
living  experience  making  their  immediate  appeal  to  the 
affections ;  the  entire  naturalness  of  thought  and  man- 
ner, no  farce,  no  cant,  no  sentimentalism ;  the  irre- 
pressible ardor  of  his  personal  conviction;  a  sturdy, 
wholesome,  manly  man,  speaking  to  his  fellow  men 
the  truth  of  the  supreme  love. 

He  was  a  blessing  to  multitudes.  He  was  a  teacher 
and  quickener  of  the  Church  and  the  ministry;  teach- 
ing the  lesson  of  definiteness  and  aggressiveness  of 
life  —  simplicity  and  earnestness  of  speech;  he  is  one 
of  the  forces  that  has  developed  the  social  conscious- 
ness of  our  generation,  the  increasing  sensitiveness 
to  contrasts  of  condition;  and  in  his  schools  and  con- 
ferences have  started  impulses  of  world-wide  evangel- 
ism.    His  work  was  of  God,  not  only  in  bringing  men 

1  Read  **  Glad  Tidings,"  p.  245. 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  163 

to  faith,  but  in  the  quickening  through  the  manifold 
veins  of  Christian  Hfe. 

The  connection  between  the  evangelism  of  the  past 
generation  and  the  present  day  is  chiefly  in  the  fact  of 
organization. 

It  is  natural  that  the  social  and  economic  charac- 
teristics of  our  age  should  also  mark  the  religious 
movements.  The  most  minute  and  thorough  plans 
are  made  in  industry,  looking  to  the  cooperation  of 
great  numbers  of  men.  The  laws  of  trade  are  stud- 
ied, the  needs  of  distant  markets  are  considered,  noth- 
ing is  left  to  chance  that  can  be  formed  and  tabulated 
and  reduced  to  science.  Something  is  still  left  to  in- 
dividual enterprise  and  initiative,  but  business  on  a 
large  scale  to-day  depends  upon  the  efficiency  of  organ- 
ization. 

And  this  spirit  has  passed  into  the  work  of  evan- 
gelism. In  fact  the  organization  of  such  work  as  Mr. 
Sunday's  in  advance  preparation  and  the  actual  man- 
agement of  the  campaign  is  not  surpassed  by  any  mod- 
ern business. 

The  campaigns  of  Mr.  Moody  were  well  organized. 
There  was  always  an  effort  to  unite  people  of  all 
churches.  Sometimes  special  tabernacles  were  built 
to  emphasize  the  unity  of  the  effort  and  to  hold  the 
throngs  too  large  for  any  church.  There  were  large 
choruses  and  trained  ushers  and  a  body  of  special 
workers  in  the  inquiry  rooms,  at  the  after  meetings. 
The  inquiry  room  was  a  feature  unused  in  evangel- 
ism before  the  day  of  Mr.  Moody.  The  altar,  the 
mourners'  bench,  various  methods  had  been  tried  to 
secure  some  public  step  on  the  part  of  the  hearers 
to  express  their  interest  or  the  choice  of  faith. 


l64  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

The  inquiry  room  was  a  distinct  step  in  advance 
as  regards  method.  It  aimed  to  conserve  the  interest 
of  the  pubHc  meeting  and  the  spiritual  contagion  of 
the  multitude  and  in  more  quiet  and  personal  ways 
secure  the  action  of  the  will.  It  furnished  something 
of  a  religious  clinic  and  recognized  the  sacredness  of 
each  life,  the  personal  and  individual  ways  of  faith. 
It  also  recognized  the  part  of  the  Church  in  evangel- 
ism and  used  the  influence  of  friendship  and  neigh- 
borship. 

There  was  the  use  of  popular  and  easily  sung  songs. 
Though  Mr.  Moody  could  not  sing  himself,  he  under- 
stood the  psychological  effect  of  song  by  a  great  au- 
dience and  he  kept  the  people  singing  under  Mr.  San- 
key's  inspiring  leadership,  long  after  some  were  im- 
patient for  the  voice  of  the  evangelist. 

There  was  a  simple  and  effective  organization  in 
Mr.  Moody's  efforts,  but  there  was  never  the  sound 
or  the  sight  of  machinery.  The  preacher  and  his 
message  were  the  chief  things.  And  the  preacher  al- 
ways exalted  his  Master  and  honored  the  Church  and 
the  ministry  that  gave  him  their  hearty  cooperation. 

There  was  the  spontaneous,  voluntary  element  of 
true  life.  The  contagion  of  crowds  was  guarded  by 
the  atmosphere  of  seriousness  and  reverence,  and 
inquirers  were  dealt  with  carefully  and  separately 
as  individuals.  And  no  method  of  the  market  place 
jarred  upon  the  solemnity  of  the  soul's  choice. 

There  were  no  extravagances  about  Mr.  Moody's 
meetings.  They  brought  thousands  to  faith,  added  to 
the  spiritual  life  of  the  churches,  gave  ministers  a 
new  directness  and  devotion  in  their  preaching,  and 
started  movements  and  institutions  of  world-wide  in- 
fluence.    The  Student  Conferences  and  the  Missionary 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  165 

Volunteer  Movements  had  their  origin  at  Northfield. 
There  was  the  effort  to  make  the  best  uses  of  hu- 
man means  and  methods,  but  with  chief  reUance  upon 
the  truths  and  the  spirit  and  the  recognition  of  the 
individuality  and  mystery  of  God's  dealings  with  a 
human  life. 

The  modern  evangelism  has  little  of  the  sponta- 
neity and  voluntariness  that  we  usually  associate  with 
spiritual  life  in  its  critical  changes  and  new  measures 
of  power.  It  seems  too  cut  and  dried  for  that.  There 
is  the  recognition  of  the  power  and  the  necessity  of  a 
united  Christian  community.  There  is  the  reliance 
upon  neighborly  interest  and  the  earnest  prayer  of 
Christian  people.  This  is  a  true  emphasis  upon  spir- 
itual preparation. 

There  is  the  use  of  great  choruses,  the  constant 
singing  by  vast  audiences  that  breaks  into  accustomed 
feehngs,  and  the  appeal  of  the  most  moving  of  all  arts. 
Certainly  the  Sunday  meetings  would  be  robbed  of 
much  of  their  attractiveness  and  of  their  estimated 
results  without  the  skilled  musical  director.  **  There 
comes  Rody,"  said  a  rough  voice  back  of  me  one 
night.     *'  He  is  more  than  one-half  the  show." 

And  the  electric  ajtmosphere,  in  its  marching  dele- 
gations and  songs  and  cheers,  is  more  like  a  great  po- 
litical convention  or  even  a  football  game  than  that 
solemn  stillness  where  God's  voice  is  heard  and  men 
make  their  peace  with  Him. 

The  sermons  are  the  truths  of  a  former  age,  before 
the  science  of  Biblical  criticism  and  comparative  reli- 
gion was  known,  the  bald  literalism  of  the  Bible,  the 
bold  appeal  to  fear  —  a  hell  of  physical  torments. 
The  sermons  are  given  with  a  sincerity  and  earnest- 


l66  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ness  that  none  can  doubt,  and  often  with  a  personal 
charm  and  persuasiveness  that  few  can  resist.  Men 
who  deny  his  truths  still  admit  the  power  of  his  per- 
son. There  is  no  prophetic  element  in  his  preaching, 
no  new  light  upon  truth  and  life.  He  speaks  only 
what  he  has  been  taught,  the  truth  and  incident  and 
illustration  gathered  from  a  multitude  of  sources,  but 
all  with  the  definiteness  and  concreteness  of  a  man 
terribly  in  earnest.  That  he  has  won  multitudes  to 
the  Christian  faith  there  is  no  doubt.  That  many  bad 
men  under  his  influence  have  changed  their  lives  is 
equally  certain. 

I  suppose  he  has  spoken  face  to  face  with  more 
people  than  any  other  evangelist.  During  his  eight 
weeks  in  Philadelphia  he  preached  one  hundred  and 
twenty-two  sermons,  to  2,330,000  people,  according 
to  the  record  of  a  responsible  paper,  the  Evening 
Ledger, 

The  biographers  of  Mr.  Sunday  and  his  special  dis- 
ciples easily  call  him  the  greatest  of  all  evangelists. 
But  it  is  too  early  properly  to  estimate  his  place  and 
his  power. 

He  is  more  of  a  reformer  than  a  teacher  of  spirit- 
ual religion,  and  he  seems  to  have  helped  men  to  be 
bold  in  attacking  certain  personal  and  social  evils, 
though  he  has  not  deepened  the  religious  life  of  the 
age.  In  his  reforming  messages,  like  the  sermon  on 
Booze,  he  is  a  pure  individualist;  he  seems  to  have 
no  idea  of  the  complex  social  forces  of  modern  life, 
how  temperance  is  a  matter  of  the  home  and  the  living 
wage  as  well  as  the  no  saloon. 

Though  he  insists  on  the  unity  of  Protestant 
churches  in  his  support,  his  treatment  of  ministers  and 
churches,  and  his  attitude  towards  modern  religious 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  167 

ideas  do  not  make  for  unity  of  religious  thought  and 
life. 

The  sensational  advertising  of  his  work,  the  unreal 
statement  of  its  result,  the  commercial  emphasis  al- 
ways felt  are  so  contrary  to  the  child-like  spirit  of  the 
Gospel  and  its  law  of  sacrifice,  and  so  unlike  the  spirit 
of  the  teacher  and  missionary  and  social  worker  in  all 
lands,  that  men  will  inevitably  grow  critical  towards 
this  type  of  evangelism. 

Already  there  are  evidences  of  it.  The  fact  that  the 
Bishops  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  North,  a 
revival  church  in  its  whole  history,  have  urged  their 
ministers  to  be  their  own  evangelists  and  to  connect 
such  efforts  with  the  church  building,  is  indication 
of  sentiment  that  will  certainly  crystallize  in  a  new 
method. 

There  are  many  other  devoted  and  effective  evan- 
gelists besides  Mr.  Sunday,  though  most  of  them  copy 
his  methods,  though  none  that  compares  with  him  in 
gift  and  fame. 

Shall  the  tabernacle  evangelism  be  a  nine  days'  won- 
der, or  will  it  have  a  permanent  and  important  place  in 
the  history  of  American  evangelism?  It  is  too  early 
to  make  a  safe  prediction.  We  are  too  close  to  it  to 
make  a  just  estimate. 

If  it  shall  mark  a  critical  step  in  the  progress  of  the 
American  church,  I  think  it  must  be  for  its  method 
and  not  for  its  message.  How  can  a  method  so 
worldly  produce  aJbiding  spiritual  results? 

It  certainly  lacks  the  prophetic  element  that  has 
marked  every  previous  era  of  evangelism,  the  new 
light  upon  religion,  the  reinterpretation  of  the  Gospel 
and  of  man  in  more  vital  terms. 

It  lacks  also  the  social  conception  of  religion.     It 


l68  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

is  superficial  in  the  estimate  of  Christian  character 
and  the  mission  of  the  Christian  Hfe.  Christ's  invi- 
tation and  command  is  not  only  personal  but  social. 
It  is  not  only  to  turn  from  the  evil  of  sin  to  the  for- 
giveness and  peace  of  the  Father's  house,  but  to  seek 
first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,  to  let 
personal  interest  be  secondary  to  the  welfare  of  others, 
to  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead  and  publish  abroad  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

The  tests  of  modern  evangelism  are  not  thorough 
or  far-reaching  enough  for  the  best  ethical  and  social 
standards  of  to-day.  They  do  not  reach  to  the  breadth 
of  God's  commandments:  they  come  far  short  of  the 
mind  of  Christ. 

They  are  not  sure  to  make  a  good  man,  i.  e.,  a  life 
filled  with  the  new  motive  of  good  will,  with  a  mis- 
sionary passion  for  goodness. 

The  over-emphasis  upon  individualism,  upon  per- 
sonal salvation  fails  to  give  the  sense  of  the  unity 
of  life,  of  the  importance  of  the  Church  as  the  chief 
agent  of  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  and  its  eye  is  so  fixed 
upon  another  world  that  it  cannot  see  the  practical 
needs  and  issues  of  this,  and  make  faith  the  instru- 
ment of  a  sound  and  wholesome  earthly  life. 

It  also  should  be  said  that  evangelism  —  not  revival- 
ism —  is  the  normal  and  necessary  work  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  The  missionary  motive  is  primal.  The 
first  impulse  of  the  new  life  is  to  seek  another,  and 
this  winning  of  men  for  faith  and  all  that  faith  stands 
for  is  the  life  and  condition  of  a  true  church. 

Evangelism  has  been  too  narrowly  conceived  as  the 
work  of  a  few  men,  as  the  hope  of  certain  favored  sea- 
sons of  religion.  It  is  the  first  duty  of  every  pastor 
and  teacher,  its  aim  and  spirit  should  pervade  the  en- 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  EVANGELISM  169 

tire  life  of  the  Church.  The  pastor  must  do  the  work 
of  an  evangeHst  for  his  own  people.  He  must  preach 
and  pray  for  constant  conversions.  He  must  expect 
them,  watch  for  them,  and  use  every  indication  of 
spiritual  interest,  as  one  whose  supreme  desire  and 
work  is  to  get  hold  of  lives. 

While  each  man  should  strive  to  do  his  work  in  his 
own  way  and  meet  his  personal  responsibility  for  souls 
like  a  man,  the  ministry  as  a  class  need  to  cultivate 
the  spirit  of  openness  and  readiness,  understanding 
the  times,  willing  to  welcome  any  message  or  measure 
or  man  that  has  the  promise  of  new  spiritual  power. 

It  is  evident  that  we  are  living  in  a  transition  pe- 
riod. While  followers  of  Mr.  Moody  or  Mr.  Sun- 
day, disciples  in  a  true  sense,  are  often  blessed  in  their 
work,  it  is  also  noticeable  that  no  general  interest  cen- 
ters in  the  work  of  the  evangelist.  The  criticisms  of 
Mr.  Moody's  last  services  in  New  York,  from  kindly 
and  spiritual  sources,  showed  that  he  failed  to  be  a 
present  leader,  that  the  great  impulses  he  started  had 
largely  spent  their  force,  better  to  say  had  been  in- 
corporated into  the  life  of  the  Church.  And  the  same 
is  still  truer  of  Mr.  Sunday. 

I  have  already  hinted  at  well-known,  often  discussed 
facts  in  the  development  of  Christianity.  Men  like 
Mr.  Finney  and  Mr.  Moody  are  both  product  and 
force.  They  are  the  voice  of  their  times  and  the  voice 
to  their  time,  and  in  both  senses  God's  voice.  It  takes 
time  for  religious  sentiment  to  gather  and  become 
controlling  forces.  Men  think  of  the  truth  and  of 
their  times.  New  conditions  demand  new  applications 
of  the  Gospel.  Thousands  of  men  are  thinking  and 
praying  and  working.  At  last  some  man  —  like 
Finney  or  Moody  —  with  peculiar  nature  and  train- 


lyo         THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ing  that  puts  them  in  closer  touch  with  men  and  the 
Holy  Spirit,  some  man  with  clearer  eye  and  stronger 
feeling,  voices  the  need  and  the  Christian  thought  of 
his  age.  Men  say  that  once  more  a  prophet  has  arisen, 
and  they  either  cast  him  out  or  follow  him  with  glad 
assent.  The  social  forces  of  the  generation  work 
with  him.  **  Men  listen  with  rapture  while  he  voices 
their  unutterable  feelings."  **  He  goes  like  a  tongue 
of  fire,  and  the  multitudes  bend  before  him." 

But  mankind  moves  on,  and  the  prophet  is  a  voice 
of  yesterday.  Great  forces  are  at  work  in  our  time. 
We  can  feel  them,  if  we  cannot  wholly  understand 
their  meaning.  The  moral  idealism,  the  spirit  of  good 
will,  of  justice  and  humanity  and  brotherhood,  awak- 
ened by  the  Great  War,  the  hope  of  a  new  age,  cannot 
finally  be  defeated  by  the  forces  of  selfish,  materialistic 
reaction.  At  last  some  man  will  catch  God's  life  upon 
the  new  age  and  proclaim  it ;  and  whether  in  the  for- 
mulation of  Christian  thought  or  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  Christianity  to  social  conditions  he  shall  be  a 
man  to  whom  the  spiritual  world  lies  open  and  whose 
passion  for  truth  and  for  humanity  shall  be  a  compel- 
ling and  uplifting  force. 

It  is  not  our  work  to  get  ready  for  such  men,  and 
least  of  all  to  wait  for  them,  but  to  do  our  work  with 
all  the  faith  and  faithfulness  we  can  attain.  And 
when  God  gets  ready  for  His  leaders.  His  prophets,  it 
is  ours  to  have  the  faith  that  shall  recognize  their  di- 
vine authentication  and  to  welcome  them  as  a  living 
word  of  God. 


IX 

SOME  DISTilNCTIVE   CONTRIBUTIONS   TO   THE   AMERI- 
CAN  PULPIT 

The  story  of  the  American  Pulpit  is  the  story  of  the 
Continent.  The  singular  veiling  of  this  western 
world  from  the  eyes  of  men,  the  providential  opening 
when  the  most  creative  forces  of  the  modern  world 
had  begun  their  working,  the  romance  and  heroism  of 
settlement  and  conquest,  the  contest  of  races  and  types 
of  religion,  the  religious  divisions  of  Europe  trans- 
planted here,  the  rank  soil  growing  many  new  and  in- 
dividual forms,  all  voicing  this  complex  life  and  shap- 
ing it  to  larger  meaning,  the  occupation  of  a  continent 
with  Christian  institutions,  the  unfolding  of  a  purpose 
of  ever-increasing  good.  The  story  of  the  American 
pulpit  is  the  story  of  the  frontier,  the  growth  of  early 
settlements,  the  leaders  of  states,  the  expanding  life 
of  the  nation,  a  story  of  prophetic,  devoted  labor,  of 
directive,  inspiring  force. 

There  are  some  striking  features  in  the  history  of 
American  Christianity  and  so  of  its  pulpit.  One  can 
speak  of  them  as  the  providential  elements  of  our  life. 

It  is  no  chance  that  the  opening  of  America  came 
at  the  hour  of  quickened  intellectual  and  religious  life 
for  Europe.  The  new  sciences  had  begun.  Inven- 
tions and  discoveries  ha:d  given  a  new  interest  to  this 
earth  and  to  human  life.  And  men  came  to  these 
shores  with  a  new  interest  in  nature  and  with  new 

171 


172  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

knowledge  of  her  forces  —  a  Briaraeus  with  a  hun- 
dred arms  for  the  conquest  of  nature.  And  the  in- 
dividual was  freed  from  the  absolute  authority  of 
church  and  creed  and  made  to  feel  his  personal  relation 
to  God  and  his  personal  responsibility  for  knowing 
the  truths  of  religion.  The  contests  for  religious  lib- 
erty were  soon  transformed  to  these  shores,  and  a 
free,  progressive  type  of  Christianity  gained  the  vic- 
tory here  over  a  priestly  form  of  religion  in  league 
with  the  State. 

And  we  have  to  be  grateful  that  in  the  many  peo- 
ples that  tried  to  colonize  in  America,  French,  Span- 
ish, Germans,  English,  the  mother  races  of  the  Teu- 
tonic stock,  the  English  and  German,  vigorous  and 
progressive,  receiving  the  new  light,  guided  by  a  more 
spiritual  purpose,  soon  gained  the  ascendency. 

A  third  providential  fact  in  the  early  Christianity 
of  America  is  the  individualism  that  kept  any  church 
from  becoming  dominant.  The  theocracy  of  the  New 
England  colonies  soon  yielded  to  other  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity. Each  colony  had  its  particular  type.  Old 
World  divisions  of  the  Church  were  multiplied  here. 
All  were  feeble  and  struggling.  All  were  partial  and 
imperfect  expressions  of  the  one  great  truth.  It  was 
not  possible  then  for  men  to  have  a  comprehensive 
faith.  The  development  of  religion  has  been  by  ir- 
regular and  conflicting  movements.  And  the  very  di- 
visions of  the  Church  and  even  their  conflicts  made 
possible  a  nobler  religious  life  in  the  end.  They  pre- 
vented a  narrow  type  of  dogmatism  and  worship  from 
becoming  fixed  upon  American  Christianity. 

Biut  as  our  national  life  has  grown,  as  we  have 
gained  the  consciousness  of  unity  and  purpose,  there 
has  been  a  natural  striving  for  greater  unity  of  reli- 


SOME  DistmcriVE  contributions     173 

gious  life.  Conviction  has  grown  of  the  weakness 
of  our  extreme  individualism.  We  have  too  often  put 
an  **  ism  "  in  the  place  of  the  Gospel.  We  have  ex- 
pressed an  eccentric  individualism  in  the  place  of  a 
simple  and  comprehensive  Christianity. 

And  our  generation  has  been  marked  by  movements 
towards  Christian  unity.  The  feeling  for  kinship  that 
has  marked  the  nations,  the  families  of  peoples  draw- 
ing together  into  a  strong  national  life  has  had  its 
corresponding  movement  in  religious  life.  Liberty  of 
conscience,  freedom  of  teaching  and  worship  have  be- 
come principles  and  habits  of  our  life,  and  now  it  is 
felt  that  the  singleness  and  greatness  of  the  religious 
life  should  be  emphasized;  that  divided  sects,  broken 
and  warring  fragments  of  Christianity  cannot  prop- 
erly express  the  one  body  of  Christ.  The  unity  of 
national  life  should  be  matched  by  the  unity  of  faith. 
The  generation  has  seen  the  union  of  several  families 
of  churches,  and  the  gathering  of  kindred  churches  in 
conferences  and  congresses  for  the  discussion  of  their 
common  interest,  and  gatherings  and  associations  of 
Christians,  regardless  of  church  connections,  for  young 
men  and  young  women,  for  missionary  and  social 
service.  The  spirit  of  God  speaking  in  these  great 
stirrings  and  the  very  need  of  the  age  call  for  a  united 
Christianity.  The  tendency  is  strong  and  the  prom- 
ise is  great. 

From  the  history  of  our  own  land,  we  may  not 
expect  in  the  Christianity  of  the  future  a  uniformity, 
or  an  organic  unity,  but  a  harmony,  a  federation  for 
religious  purpose. 

The  types  of  the  American  pulpit  that  have  stood 
for  the  churches  of  the  past  will  not  be  wholly  lost, 
but  modified  by  each  other  and  harmonized  by  their 


174  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

conception    and    spirit    into    a    single    institution,    the 
American  Pulpit. 

It  is  now  our  work  to  trace  certain  leading  indi- 
vidual types  of  the  pulpit,  to  estimate  certain  denomi- 
national contributions  to  our  pulpit. 


The  Congregational  Pulpit 

I  mention  the  Congregational  pulpit  first,  for  it 
had  the  earliest  development  and  probably,  in  propor- 
tion to  its  numbers,  has  exerted  the  greatest  influence 
on  our  national  life. 

While  the  Church  of  England,  through  the  chap- 
lains of  the  Virginia  colony,  was  the  first  religious 
worship  and  teaching  in  the  colonies,  the  churches  had 
a  feeble  and  uncertain  life  through  the  colonial  days, 
and  not  until  after  the  Revolution  was  the  Episcopal 
Church  fully  established  with  Bishops  of  her  own 
and  entered  upon  the  career  of  worthy  development 
and  influence. 

New  England  from  the  first  developed  her  own 
church  and  ministry.  The  members  of  the  Plymouth 
colony  were  Separatists.  They  had  been  hunted  and 
tortured  for  their  spiritual  faith  and  so  had  no  love 
for  the  mother  church.  The  Pilgrims  in  their  west- 
ward journey  had  broken  all  connection  with  the 
Church  of  England.  Not  so  the  Puritans,  who  came 
so  largely  in  the  second  decade,  driven  from  home  by 
the  persecution  of  Laud,  and  formed  the  bulk  of  the 
Massachusetts  colony.  They  loved  the  Church  of 
England  and  had  no  idea  of  separating  from  her. 
They  were  the  spiritual  and  reforming  element  in  a 
worldly   and   corrupt  church   and   they  were   driven 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        175 

forth  to  the  venture  of  the  New  World.  When  the 
first  considerable  company  of  Puritans  set  sail  in  their 
noble  little  fleet  of  six  vessels,  they  were  accompanied 
by  three  approved  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. When  they  took  their  last  sight  of  England 
at  Land's  End,  one  of  the  ministers,  Mr.  Higginson, 
said  to  the  company :  **  We  will  not  say,  as  the  Sep- 
aratists were  wont  to  say  at  their  leaving  of  England, 
Farewell,  Babylon!  farewell,  Rome!  but  we  will  say, 
Farewell,  dear  England,  farewell,  the  Church  of  God 
in  England,  and  all  the  Christian  friends  there!  We 
do  not  go  to  New  England  as  Separatists  from  the 
Church  of  England,  though  we  cannot  but  separate 
from  the  corruptions  in  it;  but  we  go  to  practice  the 
positive  part  of  church  reformation  and  propagate  the 
Gospel  in  America." 

It  is  a  wonder  that  the  two  elements,  Puritan  and 
Pilgrim,  radically  as  they  differed  in  the  Old  World, 
should  be  practically  one  in  their  conception  of  Church 
and  State  in  the  New  World.  The  necessity  of  union 
in  the  face  of  common  foes  and  tasks,  and  the  isola- 
tion and  freedom  of  the  untried  land,  no  doubt, 
wrought  the  wonderful  change  and  assimilation.  They 
opened  their  Bibles  and  founded  a  State  as  nearly  as 
they  could  conceive  on  the  principles  found  therein. 
They  studied  the  New  Testament  and  developed  their 
church  on  the  simple  and  free  lines  there  found.  Each 
church  was  independent,  electing  its  own  minister  and 
officers,  directing  its  own  life,  yet  uniting  with  others 
for  support  and  comfort  and  instruction,  and  for  the 
g-rowth  of  the  institutions  of  a  Christian  society. 

From  the  first  the  Congregational  churches  had  a 
notable  pulpit.  The  first  ministers  that  came  from 
jEngland   were   practically   all   University   pien.     Th^ 


176  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

majority  were  from  Immanuel  College,  Cambridge, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  same  College  has 
preserved  the  Puritan  or  evangelical  spirit  to  the 
present  time.  Union  Seminary,  New  York  City,  has 
recently  drawn  one  of  its  Professors  from  the  same 
College.  And  when  the  Puritan  emigration  largely 
ceased  with  the  beginning  of  the  Puritan  Common- 
wealth, and  the  scattered  hamlets  in  the  wilderness 
began  to  multiply,  and  to  need  more  ministers  than 
England  could  lend,  the  colonists  began  to  choose  and 
train  their  own  men.  First  Harvard  and  soon  after 
Yale  were  founded  to  raise  up  a  goodly  number  of 
godly  ministers. 

The  church  and  the  ministry  were  honored  as  they 
have  been  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  The  minister 
had  the  first  social  position  in  the  community,  as  is 
seen  from  the  early  catalogues  of  Harvard  where 
the  names  of  students  are  printed  in  order  of  the 
social  rank  of  their  parents.  It  was  as  much  an  honor 
to  have  a  boy  enter  the  ministry  as  it  has  been  in 
Presbyterian  Scotland.  The  first  fruits  of  life  and 
the  best  were  devoted  to  the  pulpit. 

The  Puritans  brought  the  truths  of  their  theology 
and  their  supreme  interest  in  them  to  America,  and 
developed  them  unmodified  by  other  forces.  So  Puri- 
tain  theology  gave  the  substance  and  form  of  the 
preaching.  The  sermons  were  systems  of  truth 
wrought  out  with  persistent  and  enthusiastic  indus- 
try. Thorough  education,  the  highest  social  influence, 
and  absorbed  interest  in  theology  were  the  directive 
influences  of  the  early  Congregational  pulpit. 

It  was  certainly  a  notable  pulpit.  The  first  minis- 
ters were  picked  men.  There  was  no  better  man  in 
the  pulpit  of  his  day  than  John  Cotton,  who  resigned 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        177 

his  place  in  the  old  Boston  that  he  might  have  a  freer 
voice  in  the  young  Boston  of  the  West.  Eliot,  apostle 
to  the  Indians,  the  Mathers,  father  and  son,  Th.  Hooker 
of  Hartford  and  John  Davenport  of  New  Haven  car- 
ried on  the  high  Puritan  traditions. 

I  have  already  spoken  especially  of  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, the  most  notable  figure  of  eighteenth  century 
America.  His  sermons  had  a  single  but  profound 
thought,  a  subtle  insight  into  the  processes  of  the 
human  soul,  a  purity  of  form  and  a  quiet  intensity 
of  manner  that  searched  the  heart  and  greatly  stirred 
its  feelings.  He  was  the  chief  force  in  the  Great 
Awakening  of  1740,  that  roused  the  Church  from  its 
formalism,  won  the  people  unrecognized  and  un- 
reached by  formal  religion  and  through  the  calling  out 
of  individual  manhood  and  the  deepening  of  feeling 
prepared  the  colonists  to  feel  their  wrongs  and  to 
take  arms  for  their  redress.  Edwards  did  not  stand 
alone.  Samuel  Hopkins  of  Newport,  the  hero  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  *'  The  Minister's  Wooing,'*  was  not  unworthy 
to  be  in  the  same  generation.  And  the  evangel  was 
proclaimed  by  a  succession  of  flaming  tongues  such 
as  Bellamy  and  Nettleton. 

The  first  notable  Congregational  preacher  of  our 
national  life  is  President  Timothy  Dwight  of  Yale 
College.  He  did  a  work  for  the  American  church 
hardly  second  to  that  of  Edwards.  The  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  the  darkest  hour  religiously 
in  our  history. 

The  great  awakening  of  the  previous  century  had 
spent  its  force  and  had  been  followed  by  a  depressing 
and  deadening  reaction.  The  Revolution  had  taken 
the  best  men  from  the  parishes  and  even  from  the 
pulpits  and  sadly  interfered  with  the  regular  serv- 


178  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ices  of  religion.  The  excitements  of  war  had  broken 
in  upon  the  orderly  habits  of  life  and  left  the  marks 
of  laxity  and  indulgence.  French  unbelief  and  French 
levity  were  commended  by  French  love  of  liberty.  Old 
restraints  of  society  and  religion  were  relaxed  and  men 
did  not  hesitate  to  question  the  most  sacred  beliefs  of 
life  in  the  name  of  progress.  It  was  fashionable  to 
doubt.  Criticism  of  the  Church  was  a  badge  of  intel- 
lectual superiority.  The  Christian  students  of  Yale 
could  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand,  and  Bishop 
Meade  of  Virginia  said  that  he  expected  to  find  a 
disciple  of  Tom  Paine  in  every  educated  man  he  met. 
Timothy  Dwight  came  to  the  Kingdom  for  such 
a  time  as  this.  He  was  a  man  of  rare  attraction  in 
person  and  manner.  He  was  alert  to  all  the  interests 
of  life,  and  a  trained  thinker  in  religion.  He  had  the 
imagination  and  sympathy  of  a  poet,  and  helped  to 
bring  finer  feeling  and  taste  into  worship,  finishing 
Watts'  versification  of  the  Psalms  and  adding  Eng- 
lish hymns  of  his  own,  chief  of  which,  "  I  love  thy 
kingdom.  Lord,*'  marks  the  beginning  of  American 
hymnology.  He  frankly  and  sympathetically  discussed 
questions  of  religion  with  his  classes  in  the  College. 
His  most  eflFective  work  was  the  sermons  in  the  Col- 
lege chapel.  He  took  up  the  chief  facts  and  truths 
of  Christianity  in  order,  and  brought  wealth  of  knowl- 
edge and  experience,  his  rhetorical  skill,  his  feeling 
for  truth  and  his  sympathy  for  young  men  to  their 
clear  and  persuasive  teaching.  His  course  covered 
the  four  years,  and  the  sermons  he  practically  re- 
peated to  every  generation  of  students.  He  turned  the 
tide  of  the  College.  The  sermons  were  repeated  in 
churches  and  to  bodies  of  ministers.  They  were  the 
renewal  of  faith,  the  quickener  of  the  spiritual  life. 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        179 

In  published  form  they  constantly  renewed  their  min- 
istry. And  they  were  a  notable  force  in  that  deep 
and  pervasive  religious  renewal  that  marked  the  first 
years  of  the  century  and  gave  to  American  Christian- 
ity that  out  reaching  missionary  spirit  that  sent  the 
Gospel  to  the  farthest  limits  of  our  own  land  and 
made  the  Church  partake  of  the  vision  of  Christ  in 
the  world-wide  mission  of  the  Kingdom. 

What  Timothy  D wight  did  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  helped  to  do 
in  the  second  quarter  of  the  century.  He  was  more 
rugged  and  independent  and  versatile.  He  met  the 
critical  and  philosophic  spirit  that  questioned  great 
catholic  facts  and  truths  of  Christianity,  and  refined 
the  Gospel  into  an  ethic.  The  Unitarian  movement, 
born  of  the  critical  and  revolutionary  forces  that 
marked  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  had 
been  long  preparing,  the  scientific,  philosophic,  liter- 
ary and  democratic  forces  that  exalted  man  and  made 
a  revolt  against  the  hard  and  fast  dogmatism  of  the 
Calvinistic  churches.  The  spirit  had  been  slowly  per- 
meating the  churches  of  eastern  New  England,  without 
being  called  Unitarian  or  making  a  division  in  the 
Congregational  ranks.  When  Mr.  Ware,  a  pronounced 
radical,  was  elected  to  the  chair  of  divinity  at  Har- 
vard and  the  chief  college  thus  pronounced  itself 
friendly  to  the  new  thought,  it  was  time  for  men  to 
speak  out  and  the  lines  were  rapidly  and  sharply 
drawn.  When  the  first  contests  were  over,  it  was 
found  that  Boston  and  its  vicinity  was  practically 
Unitarian.  The  wealth,  the  social  and  literary  in- 
fluence, the  leaders  in  the  pulpit  and  the  churches  were 
of  the  liberal  faith.  The  orthodox  were  feeble  and 
despised. 


l8o  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Lyman  Beecher  became  the  chief  pulpit  defender  of 
the  historic  faith.  He  had  already  won  a  name  as  a 
spirited  and  courageous  teacher  of  truth.  As  a  young 
man  his  sermon  against  duelling  had  made  the  nation 
hear.  At  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  he  was  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  most  important  law  school  of  the  day, 
and  in  contact  with  legal  minds  trained  in  dialectic 
skill.  In  paper  and  magazine,  on  platform  and  in 
pulpit  he  discussed  the  essential  truths  of  Christian- 
ity. His  polemic  was  inspired  and  tempered  by  his 
Christian  love.  To  win  souls  he  held  to  be  the  great- 
est thing  in  the  world.  And  so  when  he  went  to  the 
church  in  Boston,  it  was  with  powers  matured  and 
enriched  and  directed  by  a  great  passion.  He  was  a 
pastoral  evangelist.  He  preached  the  truths  of  the 
cross  with  flaming  zeal.  He  brought  men  to  faith 
and  loyalty.  He  inspired  others  with  his  own  pas- 
sion to  win  men.  His  sturdy  common  sense  matched 
his  zeal  and  his  humanity  was  so  racy  and  so  rich 
that  he  won  men  strongly  opposed  to  his  doctrine. 
He  had  to  bear  scorn  and  opposition  and  his  church 
was  derided  as  '*  Brimstone  Corner,"  but  he  bravely 
held  his  place  and  gave  heart  to  men  and  powerfully 
influenced  his  generation.  He  was  like  the  prophetic 
leader  pictured  in  Isaiah,  a  rock  in  the  desert  that  kept 
men  from  being  overwhelmed  by  the  drift  of  unbe- 
lief, and  under  his  shadow  faith  found  its  life  and  re- 
freshment. 

The  churches  of  New  England  are  largely  loyal  to 
Christ,  and  the  majority  at  Harvard  are  evangelical 
in  their  faith,  in  part  at  least  through  the  preaching 
of  Lyman  Beecher. 

It  is  possible  that  a  mediating  thinker  like  Horace 
Bushnell  had  as  much  influence,  perhaps  more,  in  mak- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS         l8l 

ing  Christianity  the  permeating  force  of  modern  life 
than  the  sermon-polemics  of  Lyman  Beecher.  Both 
were  noble  servants  of  the  truth.  BushnelFs  message 
has  already  been  given  that  Christian  doctrine  is  formu- 
lated Christian  experience.  He  was  a  creative  thinker, 
but  held  that  Infinite  mystery  could  not  be  brought  into 
postulates  of  reason.  But  the  spirit  of  man  was  the 
candle  of  the  Lord  and  could  make  a  path  of  bright 
reality  through  the  eternal  mystery.  He  was  guided 
by  his  heart  and  not  by  the  logic  that  filled  the  air 
about  him.  Many  will  agree  with  a  writer  in  the  New 
York  Tribune  that  '*  Every  man's  life  a  plan  of  God '' 
is  one  of  the  greatest  sermons  of  the  English-speaking 
pulpit. 

Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs  is  a  man  altogether  of  a  dif- 
ferent type.  And  yet  he  was  as  fitted  to  his  age  and 
place  as  the  others.  He  brought  the  best  culture  and 
experience  of  New  England  into  the  life  of  the  Amer- 
ican metropolis.  Great  social  and  commercial  forces 
were  at  work.  New  York  was  the  gateway  of  the 
Western  World  and  the  nations  poured  through  it. 
Her  merchants  had  part  in  a  world-wide  commerce. 
Her  citizens  were  compelled  to  think  in  terms  of  the 
race.  Her  churches  faced  all  the  forms  of  Christian- 
ity. The  institutions  of  a  Christian  civilization  were 
to  be  founded  and  developed.  And  the  religious  life 
was  not  to  be  self -centered  and  narrowly  American 
but  to  be  centrifugal  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
earth.  Dr.  Storrs  found  his  work  in  interpreting 
the  best  religious  life  of  America,  in  connecting  it 
with  the  past  and  directing  the  future  into  wise  and 
stable  progress.  He  did  this  as  a  pulpit  teacher.  This 
was  his  work,  never  to  be  estimated  by  followers  or 
the  size  of  popular  congregations.     He  brought  his 


l82  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

rich  culture  and  broad  sympathies  to  bear  upon  his 
task.  His  truth  always  had  the  great  historical  back- 
ground and  yet  always  glorified  the  present  meaning 
of  life.  He  was  the  College  preacher  and  the  preacher 
for  great  occasions.  He  was  to  the  pulpit  what  Ed- 
ward Everett  and  Theodore  Winthrop  were  to  the 
State.  He  was  apologetic  also  in  the  largest  sense. 
He  commended  Christianity  to  the  modern  mind.  We 
have  nothing  in  richness  of  material  and  splendor  of 
argument  to  compare  with  his  **  Divine  Origin  of 
Christianity  indicated  from  its  Historical  Efifects." 

You  are  familiar  with  the  way  he  became  an  ex- 
temporaneous preacher.  He  had  preached  written  ser- 
mons for  twenty-five  years,  when  the  burning  of  his 
church,  the  use  of  an  opera  house,  the  need  of  meet- 
ing a  changing  congregation,  threw  him  upon  the  face 
to  face  method,  discovered  his  power,  gave  him  new 
delight  in  his  work,  and  made  him  the  prince  of  ex- 
temporizers.  He  always  partook  of  the  older  style. 
He  was  too  elaborate  and  full  for  the  modern  mind. 
He  lacked  the  nervous  energy,  the  homely  directness, 
the  vivid  and  virile  qualities  of  the  best  oral  style. 
Except  on  special  occasions  he  did  not  reach  great 
masses  of  men.  But  he  gave  to  his  message  a  splen- 
dor of  vision  and  of  diction  that  commended  the  Gos* 
pel  as  the  chief  force  in  the  higher  life  of  men. 

There  are  a  dozen  names  I  should  like  to  dwell  upon 
in  the  same  way,  but  the  limit  of  this  volume  forbids. 
Three  of  four  must  be  drawn  with  strokes  enough  to 
leave  the  figure  of  the  man  before  us.  There  is  Con- 
stans  L.  Goodell,  who  had  two  notable  pastorates  that 
covered  the  best  part  of  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  first  in  New  Britain,  Connecticut,  and  then 
fgr  ^  long  term  over  the  Pilgrim  Church  of  St.  Louis, 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        183 

His  life  is  full  of  suggestion  and  inspiration  for  every 
minister. 

He  was  providentially  fitted  to  minister  in  a  great 
western  city.  His  ready  adaptation,  his  quick  and 
deep  sympathies,  his  personal  interest,  his  energy  and 
courage  and  enthusiasms,  his  prescience  and  practical 
wisdom,  his  commanding  figure  and  voice  and  leader- 
ship, his  deep  spirituality  combined  with  humor  and 
tolerance  made  his  ministry  one  of  remarkable  inter- 
est and  power.  He  was  first  of  all  a  pastor,  knowing 
men  one  by  one  and  winning  them  through  friendship. 
He  had  a  genius  for  organization  and  had  a  work 
for  each  one  and  each  one  at  work.  He  gave  a  wel- 
come to  new  forms  of  endeavor.  He  it  was  who  wrote 
the  beautiful  introduction  to  '*  Children  and  the 
Church,"  the  first  book  of  Dr.  Frances  E.  Clarke, 
which  started  the  movement  of  the  Young  People's  So- 
cieties. His  preaching  was  worthy,  the  expression  of 
the  great  heart  and  a  singular  devotion,  but  in  the  ever 
changing,  forming  life  of  a  western  city  it  was  the  man 
that  counted  the  most  in  his  gifts  of  the  friend  and 
the  leader. 

Another  name  not  to  be  forgotten  in  the  succession 
of  Congregational  preachers  is  that  of  Jacob  M.  Man- 
ning, pastor  for  twenty-five  years  of  the  Old  South 
Church,  Boston.  His  ministry  covers  the  same  years 
as  that  of  Dr.  Goodell.  They  must  have  been  in  An- 
dover  together.  A  farmer  boy  from  western  New 
York,  going  to  Amherst  with  the  ministry  in  view, 
after  leaving  the  Seminary  he  had  a  short  pastorate 
at  Medford,  Massachusetts,  then  became  assistant  and 
soon  full  pastor  of  one  of  the  most  important  churches 
of  the  country.  The  Old  South  had  had  a  line  of 
notable  preachers  and  Dr.  Manning  kept  up  the  sue- 


l84  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

cession.  The  country  lad  became  one  of  the  most 
thoughtful  and  finished  preachers  of  the  day.  I  use 
the  word  finished  not  in  the  sense  of  elaborate  or  un- 
duly polished,  and  so  suggesting  perhaps  the  artifi- 
cial. His  sermons  had  the  ring  of  conviction  and 
reality.  But  they  were  finely  wrought.  They  have 
the  sense  of  proportion,  the  harmony  of  true  beauty. 
They  lack  the  original  quality  of  his  successor,  Dr. 
Geo.  A.  Gordon.  They  have  little  of  his  fertility  and 
exuberance,  but  they  are  marked  by  reality  and  sim- 
plicity, a  high  ideal  of  truth  and  of  work.  Professor 
Tyler's  words  concerning  him  seem  true  to  the  very 
end.  **  Made  originally  of  precious  metal,  cast  in  a 
fine  mold,  he  took  on  a  finer  polish  at  each  successive 
stage  of  his  education."  There  are  few  better  vol- 
umes of  American  sermons  than  the  one  published  after 
his  death. 

Dr.  William  M.  Taylor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle, 
New  York  City,  was  the  most  notable  importation  from 
Scotland  to  the  American  pulpit.  With  pastorates  at 
Kilmarnock  and  Liverpool,  he  came  to  America  in 
the  maturity  of  his  strength.  He  was  a  scholar  in  the 
pulpit  and  yet  with  unusual  rhetorical  gifts.  He  was 
a  giant  in  body  and  mind,  and  a  leader  of  men  by 
sovereign  right  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  attain- 
ments. He  gave  us  an  example,  sorely  lacking,  of 
systematic  interpretation  of  Christian  truth.  He  also 
taught  us  that  great  preaching  came  from  great  think- 
ing and  great  living.  The  noblest  and  widest  litera- 
ture lived  in  his  speech.  His  Bible  portraits  have  not 
been  surpassed  in  their  vivid  features  and  present  mes- 
sage. Some  of  the  sermons  would  seem  too  packed 
with  thought  and  too  rich  in  instance  for  the  mercurial 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS         185 

spirit  of  cosmopolitan  congregations,  but  his  own  pas- 
sion and  person  always  made  them  vital. 

Among  recent  men  stand  the  names  of  Dr.  T.  T. 
Hunger  of  New  Haven,  Dr.  Amory  Howe  Bradford 
of  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  and  Washington  Gladden 
of  Columbus,  Ohio,  All  three  were  thinkers  and  lead- 
ers and  their  spoken  word  was  vastly  multiplied  by 
their  books.  A  bust  of  Dr.  Bradford  has  recently  been 
unveiled  in  the  Montclair  church,  with  this  inscrip- 
tion :  *'  Inspiring  preacher,  sympathetic  pastor,  wise 
leader,  public  spirited  citizen,  founder  of  institutions, 
apostle  of  the  divine  fatherhood,  prophet  of  the  hu- 
man brotherhood,  his  memory  will  abide  as  inspira- 
tion and  joy." 

If  one  should  try  to  estimate  the  distinctive  contri- 
bution of  the  Congregational  pulpit,  it  would  be  in 
the  intellectual  aspects  of  truth.  Its  preachers  have 
been  essentially  teachers.  They  have  had  the  best 
training  of  New  England  and  the  traditions  of  that 
training  have  been  carried  westward.  The  sermons 
have  been  suggestive  and  apologetic,  appealing  to  rea- 
son and  conscience  more  than  the  emotions,  and  deal- 
ing with  the  practical,  ethical  aspects  of  truth. 

2 

The  Baptist  Pulpit 

The  Baptist  churches  are  marked  for  their  strong 
individualism.  They  are  the  logical  and  extreme  out- 
come of  Protestantism.  And  American  life  has 
greatly  emphasized  this  trait.  Therefore  it  is  the  nat- 
ural result  to  find  the  Baptist  Church  the  strongest 
numerically  of  American  Protestants. 


l86  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

It  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  the  principles  that  have 
marked  their  development  that  we  may  understand 
their  pulpit. 

As  I  have  said  they  are  the  logical  product  of  the 
Reformation,  i.  e.  authority  of  the  word  of  God  alone, 
salvation  by  faith  alone  and  the  supremacy  of  the 
individual  conscience.  Baptist  views  and  churches 
early  appeared  and  they  have  had  an  important  place 
in  nearly  all  Protestant  countries. 

In  the  New  Testament  they  found  their  concep- 
tion of  the  Church  to  be  composed  only  of  believers. 
The  Church  should  be  made  up  of  regenerate  persons. 
This  meant  adult  persons.  So  they  have  restricted 
baptism  and  church  membership  to  adults,  and  have 
rejected  the  covenant  idea  of  life  and  infant  baptism. 
As  they  accepted  nothing  that  could  not  be  proved 
by  the  Scripture,  they  have  mostly  held  to  immersion 
as  taught  there  and  as  alone  symbolical  of  the  com- 
plete change  of  regeneration. 

This  has  made  them  logical  opponents  of  the  na- 
tional or  State  church  which  is  founded  upon  the 
covenant  principle  of  the  social  solidarity  of  the  reli- 
gious life.  This  has  also  made  them  independent  in 
their  church  life,  and  as  conscience  was  free  in  in- 
terpreting the  word  of  God,  it  has  made  them  apostles 
of  religious  freedom,  especially  the  free  use  of  indi- 
vidual powers  in  instruction  and  leadership. 

Roger  Williams  stands  at  the  very  beginning  of  Bap- 
tist history  in  America,  and  is  the  most  notable  name 
in  that  history. 

The  Puritans  were  reformers  and  in  New  England 
established  what  they  held  a  Scriptural  Church,  but 
they  had  the  national  idea  of  the  Mother  Church,  the 
Church  was  for  the  community  and  must  be  supported 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        187 

by  it.     The  Church  was   Congregational  but  it  was 
established.     New  England  was  a  theocracy. 

The  Puritans  came  for  freedom  to  worship  God 
in  their  way,  but  all  who  voluntarily  came  with  them 
must  also  worship  in  their  way.  And  they  were  right 
up  to  their  light.  It  seemed  to  them  the  only  way  to 
found  a  strong  state. 

Roger  Williams  did  not  agree  with  the  dominant 
idea.  And  there  were  a  few  others  with  him.  He 
was  a  noble  and  pure  man  but  he  made  it  very  uncom- 
fortable for  the  early  colony.  **  Learned,  eloquent, 
sincere,  generous,  Roger  Williams  was  a  malignant 
independent.  Separating  himself  not  only  from  the 
English  church,  but  from  all  who  would  not  separate 
from  it,  and  from  all  who  would  not  separate  from 
these,  and  so  on,  until  he  could  no  longer,  for  con- 
science' sake,  hold  fellowship  with  his  wife  in  fam- 
ily prayers.  After  long  patience  the  colonial  govern- 
ment deemed  it  necessary  to  signify  to  him,  that  if 
his  conscience  would  not  suffer  him  to  keep  quiet, 
and  refrain  from  stirring  up  sedition,  and  embroiling 
the  colony  with  the  English  government,  he  would 
have  to  seek  freedom  for  that  sort  of  conscience  out- 
side of  their  jurisdiction;  and  they  put  him  out  ac- 
cordingly, to  the  great  advantage  of  both  parties  and 
without  loss  of  mutual  respect  and  love."  ^ 

Roger  WiHiams  was  a  prophetic  spirit  in  teaching 
that  civil  government  had  no  concern  to  enforce  **  the 
laws  of  the  first  table,*'  and  the  colony  of  Rhode 
Island  founded  by  him  embodied  the  principle  of 
'*  Soul-liberty  "  in  its  earliest  acts. 

The  spirit  of  religious  liberty  and  tolerance  made 
rapid  progress  and  soon  Baptists  ceased  to  be  a  pro- 

1  Bacon,  "  History  of  the  American  Churches,"  p.  100. 


i88  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

hibited  form  of  religion  in  the  Massachusetts  colony. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  three  fore- 
most pastors  of  Boston  assisted  in  the  ordination  of 
a  minister  to  the  Baptist  Church,  at  which  Cotton 
Mather  preached  the  sermon,  entitled,  "  Good  Men 
United."  It  was  a  frank  confession  of  the  ill  things 
done  in  the  name  of  religion. 

Many  natural  forces  in  the  colonies  tended  to  give 
the  Baptist  churches  a  rapid  progress.  Groups  of 
settlers  in  many  colonies,  such  as  the  German  sects, 
the  Mennonites  and  Moravians,  people  with  the  in- 
tense missionary  spirit,  were  closely  allied  to  the  Bap- 
tists in  their  ideas. 

The  great  awakening  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  marks  the  close  of  the  distinctly  Puritan  sway 
and  the  growth  of  independent  feeling  and  action  in 
religion.  The  evangelists  that  carried  on  the  work 
were  often  unordained  men  and  the  groups  of  people 
reached  were  without  the  instruction  of  ministers. 
They  must  develop  their  own  institutions  of  religion, 
self-trained  men  called  out  of  their  number  to  be  the 
leaders.  This  suited  well  the  Baptist  principle.  And 
the  growing  spirit  of  freedom,  and  the  scattered  and 
isolated  communities  led  to  the  spirit  of  independence 
in  religion.  Especially  in  the  middle  and  southern  col- 
onies did  the  Baptists  have  rapid  growth. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  they  have  been  noted  for 
their  pulpit  until  recent  years.  In  the  Colonial  pe- 
riod and  well  into  the  nineteenth  century  many  of  their 
churches  were  served  by  devoted  but  untrained  men. 
They  were  men  of  force  but  their  lack  of  training 
prevented  them  from  becoming  eminent  in  the  pulpit. 
Some  of  them  were  effective  evangelists,  like  Elder 
Jacoib   Knapp,   whose  preaching  quickened  hundreds 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        189 

of  churches.  The  Baptist  churches  were  noted  for 
their  fervent  evangehsm,  and  the  growth  of  the 
churches  developed  too  much  upon  special  seasons  and 
special  preachers. 

One  minister  stands  out  from  the  rest  for  his  long 
service,  his  thoughtful  ministry  and  his  wide  service 
to  the.  community.  Dr.  William  Williams  of  New 
York  was  fifty  years  in  one  church,  holding  his  own 
with  strong  men,  large-minded  in  his  interests,  a  per- 
suasive preacher,  and  a  leader  in  the  higher  life  of  his 
city.  It  is  natural  that  a  church  that  at  first  had  low 
educational  standards  for  its  pulpit,  should  awake  at 
last  to  thorough  training  and  so  should  have  its  most 
noted  preachers  in  connection  with  its  schools. 

The  three  noted  names  among  the  older  men  are  all 
those  of  teachers. 

President  Francis  Way  land  of  Brown  University 
gave  that  College  its  strong  foundation  and  his  books 
on  moral  philosophy  were  the  text-books  of  a  genera- 
tion. He  was  only  second  to  Timothy  Dwight  as  a 
preacher  to  College  men.  And  the  wonderful  growth 
of  the  Baptist  Church  in  education  equaled  by  no 
other  church  is  due  in  no  small  part  to  his  contagious 
example. 

Dr.  E.  G.  Robinson,  first  professor  of  theology  at 
Rochester  and  later  President  of  Brown  University, 
had  few  equals  in  his  day  as  a  platform  speaker.  He 
had  a  subtle,  sensitive  nature  that  interpreted  the  com- 
mon thought,  especially  of  critical  hours,  and  a  mag- 
netic personality  that  charmed  and  swayed  a  multi- 
tude by  his  thought.  The  older  citizens  of  Rochester 
have  never  forgotten  his  impromptu  speech  at  the 
assassination  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  speak  of  it  as 
one  of  the  great  experiences  of  their  lives. 


190  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Dr.  Broadus  was  the  great  preacher  of  the  South 
and  could  have  had  any  pulpit  of  his  church,  but  surely 
he  was  right  in  putting  his  conception  of  thorough 
study  and  honest  interpretation  of  the  Gospel  and 
simple,  persuasive  speech  into  generations  of  young 
men.  His  voice  is  multiplied  a  hundred  times  by  the 
service  he  gave  to  the  training  of  the  ministry. 

Any  view  of  the  Baptist  pulpit  could  hardly  fail  to 
mention  George  A.  Lorimer,  the  actor-preacher  who 
brought  dramatic  feeling  and  the  most  facile  expres- 
sion to  the  giving  of  a  Gospel  always  thoughtful  and 
worthy;  P.  S.  Henson,  whose  wit  and  imagination 
and  original  thought  and  manner  added  persuasion  to 
his  fearless  and  searching  message;  Wayland  Hoyt, 
effective  with  pen  and  voice,  untiring  in  energy,  heard 
widely  on  platform  and  in  pulpit,  a  stimulating  exam- 
ple for  the  pulpit  of  his  day.  The  standard  of  preach- 
ing in  the  Baptist  pulpit  has  been  immensely  raised 
in  fifty  years.  No  Seminaries  have  more  gifted  teach- 
ers and  no  pulpit  is  receiving  a  larger  number  of  well- 
equipped,  enthusiastic  preachers. 

The  most  distinctive  contribution  of  the  Baptist  pul- 
pit is  that  of  freedom  of  teaching.  No  pulpit  is  freer 
and  no  pulpit  is  more  loyal  to  the  truth.  Each  man 
is  not  only  free  to  find  his  own  truth  and  express  it 
in  his  own  way,  but  any  man  who  has  the  gift  and 
desire  may  do  this.  The  Church  has  little  to  do  with 
it  all.  There  are  few  paths  in  which  men  are  forced 
to  walk.  Freedom  is  not  often  abused,  and  an  in- 
creasing number  know  that  it  means  obedience  to  the 
highest  use,  and  to  use  the  best  ways  of  fitting  them- 
selves for  their  work.  Freedom  leads  to  self-reliance 
and  courage  and  large  sympathies.     And  with  increas- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        191 

ing  culture  the  Baptists  are  known  for  the  generous 
manhood  of  their  preachers. 


The  Unitarian  Pulpit 

The  condition  of  the  New  England  churches  out 
of  which  Unitarianism  arose  as  a  distinct  form  is 
thus  described  by  O.  B.  Frothingham,  the  biographer 
of  Theodore  Parker.  **  The  doctrines  of  the  Puritan 
theology  had  lost  their  hold  on  an  unimaginative  peo- 
ple; and  with  them  the  fervors  of  the  evangelical 
spirit  had  declined.  The  sinfulness  of  human  nature, 
the  need  of  redemption,  the  deity  of  Christ,  the  aton- 
ing efficacy  of  his  blood,  the  necessity  of  inward  re- 
newal by  the  grace  of  God,  the  worthlessness  of  mor- 
ality, the  everlastingness  of  future  punishment,  the 
consciousness  of  acceptance,  the  immanence  of  Christ 
in  the  Church,  the  eternity  of  bliss  for  believers,  were 
all  more  or  less  thoughtfully  rejected  by  men  whose 
sober  lives  had  settled  down  into  prose,  and  whose 
experience  suggested  little  of  mystery.  The  preach- 
ing lacked  inspiration:  even  the  prayers  were  didactic. 
The  best  of  the  clergy  were  men  of  letters,  rarely 
prophets:  the  worst  were  neither.  Churches  were 
closed  to  Whitefield  before  Theodore  Parker  was  born. 
The  seats  of  culture  dreaded  the  influence  of  the  fa- 
mous preacher  of  revivals;  the  clergy  encouraged  the 
laity  to  frown  down  extravagant  views;  the  sacra- 
ments had  lost  their  charm ;  the  mystery  had  departed 
from  the  communion;  baptism  was  rarely  adminis- 
tered; heads  of  families  were  commonly  church  mem- 
bers, the  younger  people  seldom ;  family  prayers  were 


192  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

infrequent ;  grace  before  meat  was  unusual ;  the  clergy- 
man was  respected  as  a  man  of  education;  the  Sab- 
bath was  observed  punctually;  the  Bible  was  read;  but 
the  soul  of  the  Protestant  faith  had  fled." 

This  was  the  natural,  perhaps  inevitable  reaction, 
from  a  high,  dogmatic  theology  that  made  hard  and 
fast  lines  with  all  God's  workings  with  a  human  soul, 
and  yet  left  the  common  concerns  of  life  so  largely 
outside  this  working.  It  was  also  the  result  of  the 
increased  interest  in  this  earthly  life,  due  to  all  the 
growing  knowledge  of  the  world  and  human  life  and 
to  the  increased  ministry  of  the  world  to  the  use  and 
satisfactions  of  this  life.  And  furthermore  the  crit- 
ical spirit  born  of  the  physical  sciences  had  little  by 
little  permeated  the  common  thoughts  and  made  men 
either  skeptical  or  indifferent  to  the  former  claims  of 
the  Church. 

But  to  say  this  is  only  a  partial  statement  of  the 
Unitarian  movement.  To  the  rank  and  file  the  doc- 
trine and  experiences  of  evangelical  religion  were  too 
high  or  unnatural  and  unreal.  That  was  the  result 
of  a  cold,  practical  reason. 

But  there  was  more  than  this  in  the  Unitarian  move- 
ment. There  were  men  who  regarded  it  as  the  rein- 
terpretation  of  Christianity,  as  sloughing  off  the  im- 
perfect philosophies  of  the  centuries  and  getting  back 
to  Christ.  They  believed  themselves  pioneers  of  a 
new,  broader  and  more  vital  expression  of  faith. 
They  had  something  of  the  spirit  of  the  prophet. 

Theodore  Parker  was  such  a  man. 

He  partook  of  the  revolutionary  spirit,  the  revolt 
of  the  age  against  external  authority  in  the  State  and 
the  Church,  against  hard  and  fast  and  narrow  bound- 
aries of  the  religious  life.     God  and  religion  were  not 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        193 

to  be  confined.  Beauty  was  a  part  of  God's  world  and 
all  high  endeavor.  And  religion  was  to  express  itself 
in  nature  and  art,  in  literature  and  science,  in  industry 
and  government.  It  was  a  spirit  and  not  a  creed,  a 
life  and  not  a  church.  And  he  was  steeped  in  the 
transcendental  philosophy.  Things  were  not  what  they 
seemed.  And  he  was  ever  trying  to  get  behind  form 
to  the  simpler  and  deeper  realities.  So  Theodore 
Parker  was  a  disturbing  but  inspiring  force  in  the 
Unitarian  pulpit.  He  went  to  greater  lengths  of  re- 
volt than  Channing,  because  he  had  greater  energy 
of  life  and  greater  courage  of  faith. 

He  was  a  man  of  wonderful  moral  and  religious 
sensibility.  I  think  the  story  of  his  childhood  is 
prophetic  of  his  whole  life.  "  When  a  little  boy  in 
petticoats,  in  my  fourth  year,  one  fine  day  in  spring 
my  father  led  me  by  the  hand  to  a  distant  part  of  the 
farm,  but  soon  sent  me  home  alone.  On  the  way  I 
had  to  pass  a  little  pond  hole,  then  spreading  its  wa- 
ters wide.  A  rhodora  in  full  bloom  attracted  my  at- 
tention and  drew  me  to  the  spot.  I  saw  a  little  spotted 
tortoise  sunning  himself  in  the  shallow  water  at  the 
root  of  the  flaming  shrub.  I  Hfted  the  stick  I  had  in 
my  hand  to  strike  the  harmless  reptile.  But  all  at 
once  something  checked  my  little  arm,  and  a  voice 
within  me  said  clear  and  loud,  *  It  is  wrong.'  I  held 
my  uplifted  stick  in  wonder  at  the  new  emotion  — 
the  consciousness  of  an  involuntary  but  inward  check 
upon  my  actions  —  till  the  tortoise  and  the  rhodora 
both  vanished  from  my  sight.  I  hastened  home,  told 
the  tale  to  my  mother,  and  asked  what  it  was  that  told 
me  it  was  wrong.  She  wiped  a  tear  from  her  eye  with 
her  apron,  and  taking  me  in  her  arms,  said,  '  Some  men 
call  it  conscience;  but  I  prefer  to  call  it  the  voice  of 


194  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

God  in  the  soul  of  man.  If  you  listen  and  obey  it, 
then  it  will  speak  clearer  and  clearer,  and  always  guide 
you  right;  but  if  you  turn  a  deaf  ear  and  disobey, 
then  it  will  fade  out  little  by  little,  and  leave  you  all 
in  the  dark  and  without  a  guide.  Your  life  depends 
on  your  heeding  this  little  voice.*  I  am  sure  no  event 
in  my  life  has  made  so  deep  and  lasting  an  impres- 
sion upon  me.'*  This  sensibility  of  the  child  became 
the  reflection  of  manhood  and  deepened  into  character. 
He  was  wonderfully  sensitive  to  the  appeal  of  weak- 
ness and  suflFering,  and  he  brought  the  loftiest  truth 
to  the  touch  of  the  simplest  need  and  failed  not  to 
speak  for  the  helpless  and  wronged. 

This  moral  sensitiveness  that  made  him  like  a  sensi- 
tive plate  to  the  faintest  impress  of  truth  and  life,  also 
made  his  own  spirit  the  test  and  judge.  The  source 
of  his  faith  was  within.  He  was  hospitable  to  all 
teachers,  but  called  none  master.  He  was  a  pure 
transcendentalist  if  there  ever  was  one.  His  was  an 
intuitive  faith,  seemingly  unfed  by  the  great  historical 
facts  of  Christianity  that  most  believers  depend  upon, 
and  unassailable  as  well  by  historical  doubt  and  lit- 
erary criticism.  '*  His  beliefs  were  not  imported: 
they  were  the  native  products  of  his  own  mind  and 
experience.  They  were  fact  before  they  were  formu- 
lated. As  a  boy,  almost  as  a  child,  his  sense  of  the 
reality,  the  immanence,  the  infinite  perfection  of  God, 
had  been  profound;  his  assurance  of  the  soul's  per- 
sonal immortality  was  beyond  necessity  or  reach  of 
argument;  his  reverence  for  the  moral  law,  as  voiced 
by  his  private  conscience,  was  habitual  and  deep.  He 
seems  never  to  have  doubted  on  these  three  points; 
and  they  were  the  cardinal  points  of  his  religious 
faith.     To  give  expression  to  these  three  great  verities, 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        195 

to  make  them  seen  in  their  beauty,  appreciated  in  their 
intrinsic  value,  and  accepted  as  vital  principles  in  pri- 
vate and  public  life,  was  his  ruling  passion." 

This  absolute  trust  in  the  moral  nature  of  man  was 
his  strength  and  also  his  weakness.  He  was  too  inde- 
pendent of  the  great  facts  of  religion  and  the  conclu- 
sions of  generations  of  faith.  He  said  that  Luther 
plunged  out  into  the  great  deep,  trusting  the  winds 
of  God  and  the  pilot  of  his  soul,  but  his  successors  had 
timidly  hugged  the  shores  of  truth  that  other  men  had 
found.  The  venture,  the  trust  was  the  soul  of  Parker, 
and  he  thought  to  be  a  Luther  of  a  new  reformation 
of  spiritual  religion. 

He  was  the  staunchest  Protestant.  He  could  not 
conform  to  the  metes  and  bounds  of  his  own  church, 
and  finally  cast  off  all  association  of  churches  —  per- 
haps was  logically  compelled  to  do  so  —  and  steered 
his  course  alone.  In  slipping  his  moorings  and  go- 
ing out  into  the  open  sea  he  believed  that  he  was  go- 
ing into  the  deep  sea  of  truth. 

With  this  staunch  independence,  this  absolute  trust 
in  his  own  moral  and  spiritual  discernment  was  a  sym- 
pathy for  life  and  hunger  of  mind  and  heart  that 
made  him  the  most  omnivorous  student  of  philosophies 
and  sciences,  of  literature  and  religions  and  made  his 
mind  a  curiosity  shop  as  well  as  a  treasury  of  truth. 
There  is  surely  a  touch  of  genius  here,  the  avidity  and 
eagerness  and  insatiableness  of  his  mental  life! 

We  have  nothing  like  it  in  the  American  pulpit, 
save  the  early  student  life  of  Phillips  Brooks.  In  a 
single  two  months  he  read  sixty-five  volumes  in  Ger- 
man, English,  Danish,  Latin  and  Greek.  He  found 
delight  in  the  lighter  literature  of  fiction  and  poetry, 
he  plowed  his  way  through  the  great  thinkers  of  the 


196  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

world.  The  range  of  his  reading  was  practically  uni- 
versal. 

And  so  he  interpreted  his  ministry  in  a  large  way. 
Ail  literature  to  him  was  sacred  literature.  All  the 
facts  of  life  were  sacred,  and  he  seemed  to  many  in- 
tent upon  things  that  did  not  make  directly  for  the  re- 
ligious life,  and  in  his  universality  failed  to  emphasize 
the  essentials  of  Christianity. 

But  he  was  a  spiritual  man :  a  fearless  and  inspiring 
preacher  of  what  he  held  to  be  the  Christian  religion. 

Let  me  make  this  man  speak  in  some  of  his  most 
significant  words. 

He  prayed  on  entering  the  ministry :  **  I  ask  for 
thy  blessings,  O  most  merciful  Father!  upon  all  my 
labors  and  studies.  Keep  me  from  sin  and  from  every 
harmful  error." 

The  devotion  to  his  work  was  strong  and  sincere. 
**  Consequences  I  have  nothing  to  do  with :  they  be- 
long to  God.  He  will  take  care  of  all  consequences. 
To  me  belongs  only  duty.  Come  what  will  come,  I 
shall  do  it.  All  that  I  have,  give  I  to  the  one  cause, 
be  it  little  or  much." 

And  the  supreme  aim  was  the  spiritual  life  of  his 
hearers.  **  If  I  deemed  it  certain  that  any  word  of 
mine  would  ever  waken  the  deep  inner  life  of  another 
soul,  I  should  bless  God  that  I  am  alive  and  speak- 
ing. But  I  will  trust.  I  am  sometimes  praised  for 
my  sermons.  I  wish  men  knew  how  cold  those  sleek 
speeches  are.  I  would  rather  see  one  man  practicing 
one  of  my  sermons  than  hear  all  men  praise  them." 

He  was  not  flattered  by  the  crowds  that  hung  upon 
his  ministry.  **  Nothing  makes  a  real  man  so  humble 
as  to  stand  and  speak  to  many  men."  His  ethical  pas- 
sion is  shown  in  his  prophet-like  teaching  of  the  social 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        197 

mission  of  the  true  church.  "  In  the  midst  of  all 
these  wrongs  and  sins,  amid  popular  ignorance,  pauper- 
ism, crime  and  war,  and  slavery  too,  is  the  Church  to 
say  nothing,  do  nothing,  nothing  for  the  good  of  such 
as  feel  the  wrong,  nothing  to  save  them  who  do  the 
wrong?  If  I  thought  so,  I  would  never  enter  the 
Church  but  once  again,  and  then  to  bow  my  shoulder 
to  their  manliest  work  —  to  heave  down  its  strong 
pillars,  arch  and  dome  and  roof  and  wall,  steeple  and 
towers,  though,  like  Samson,  I  buried  myself  under 
the  ruins  of  that  temple  which  profaned  the  worship 
of  God  most  high,  of  God  most  loved.  I  would  do 
this  in  the  name  of  man ;  in  the  name  of  Christ  I  would 
do  it;  yes,  in  the  dear  and  blessed  name  of  God." 

Theodore  Parker  held  his  audiences  by  the  worth 
of  his  thought.  He  was  a  thinker  and  taxed  the 
thought  of  his  hearers.  He  read  his  sermons  and 
there  was  nothing  practically  attractive  in  voice  or 
person  or  manner.  "  His  audiences  were  held  by  the 
spell  of  earnest  thought  alone,  uttered  in  language  so 
simple,  that  a  plain  man  hearing  him,  remarked  on 
leaving  church,  '  Is  that  Theodore  Parker  ?  You  told 
me  he  was  a  remarkable  man ;  but  I  understood  every 
word  he  said.'  His  style  was  never  dry;  the  words 
were  sinewy ;  the  sentences  short  and  pithy ;  the  lan- 
guage was  fragrant  with  the  odor  of  fields,  and  rich 
with  the  juices  of  the  ground.  Passages  of  exquisite 
beauty  bloomed  on  almost  every  page.  Illustrations 
pertinent  and  racy  abounded;  but  there  was  no  ambi- 
tious flight  of  rhetoric,  and  never  any  attempt  to  carry 
the  heart  in  opposition  to  the  judgment." 

He  was  not  so  finely  endowed  as  Channing  but  he 
had  a  braver  spirit.  He  was  the  prophet  of  the  un- 
churched but  religious  masses:  he  was  a  man  of  the 


198  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

people   whose   '*  word    ran   swiftly    in   rough   paths/' 

His  real  message  was  ethical,  the  social  application 
of  truth.  And  here  he  was  the  least  negative.  How- 
ever radical  and  searching  the  word,  it  had  the  ideal 
of  Jesus  to  enforce  its  claim. 

**  His  commanding  merit  of  a  reformer  is  this,  that 
he  insisted  beyond  all  men  in  pulpits  —  I  cannot  think 
of  one  rival  —  that  the  essence  of  Christianity  is  its 
practical  morals:  it  is  there  for  use,  or  it  is  nothing; 
and  if  you  combine  it  with  sharp  trading,  or  with 
ordinary  city  ambitions  to  gloss  over  municipal  cor- 
ruptions, or  private  intemperance,  or  successful  fraud, 
or  immoral  politics,  or  unjust  wars,  or  the  cheating 
of  Indians,  or  the  robbery  of  frontier  nations,  or 
leaving  your  principles  at  home  to  show  on  the  high 
seas  or  in  Europe  a  supple  compliance  to  tyrants,  it 
is  an  hypocrisy,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  you;  and  no 
love  of  religious  music,  or  of  dreams  of  Swedenborg, 
or  praise  of  John  Wesley  or  of  Jeremy  Taylor  can 
save  you  from  the  Satan  which  you  are."  ^ 

Theodore  Parker  was  classed  as  a  radical  Unitarian 
and  often  gave  short  shrift  to  what  he  termed  orthodox 
superstitions.  No  doubt  he  was  too  ready  to  apply 
his  rule  of  thumb  to  the  agonies  and  ecstasies  of 
Prophet  and  Apostle. 

But  his  reverence  for  Jesus  and  his  moral  allegiance 
might  well  be  the  spirit  of  us  all.  His  heart  speaks 
in  his  beautiful  sonnet : 

O  thou  great  friend  to  all  the  sons  of  men, 
Who  once  appeared  in  humblest  guise  below 
Sin  to  rebuke,  to  break  the  Captive's  chain. 
To  call  thy  brethren  forth  from  want  and  woe ! 

1 "  Life,"  by  0.  B.  Frothingham,  p.  551. 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS         199 

Thee  would  I  sing.     Thy  truth  is  still  the  light 

Which  guides  the  nations  groping  on  their  way, 

Stumbling  and  falling  in  disastrous  night, 

Yet  hoping  ever  for  the.  perfect  day. 

Yes,  thou  art  still  the  life;  thou  art  the  way 

The  holiest  know  —  light,  life  and  way  of  heaven; 

And  they  who  dearest  hope  and  deepest  pray 

Toil  by  the  truth,  life,  way,  that  thou  hast  given; 

And  in  thy  name  aspiring  mortals  trust 

To  uplift  their  bleeding  brothers  rescued  from  the  dust. 

Next  to  Channing,  Theodore  Parker  is  the  shining 
name  of  the  Unitarian  pulpit.  But  there  were  lesser 
lights  that  shone  with  a  clear  and  steady  radiance. 
They  were  all  affected  by  the  Cambridge  group  of 
literary  men,  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Motley,  Ticknor, 
Holmes  and  Lowell.  They  were  all  seeking  for  the 
voices  of  God  outside  the  Bible  and  seeking  to  widen 
the  sphere  of  religion.  They  all  regarded  literature 
as  the  highest  interpretation  of  life  and  religion,  as 
the  life  inspired  by  God  in  its  human  relations. 

James  Freeman  Qarke,  like  the  elder  Peabody,  was 
a  Unitarian  of  the  older  school ;  of  the  type  of  Chan- 
ning rather  than  Parker,  whose  position  in  many  ways 
would  be  hard  to  distinguish  from  the  liberal  ortho- 
doxy of  to-day.  Take  this  phrase  in  the  criticism  of 
a  recent  book  — **  A  Christ  who  is  a  manifestation  of 
God  in  humanity  for  a  Christ  who  is  a  God-man,  and 
therefore  neither  a  manifestation  of  what  God  is  nor 
of  what  man  can  hope  to  become."  Such  an  interpre- 
tation of  Christ  as  emphasizes  his  Divinity  rather  than 
his  Deity  is  the  spirit  of  the  more  reverent  of  the 
early  Unitarians.  Dr.  Clarke  was  an  active  pastor 
in  Boston  for  most  of  his  life,  a  teacher  and  leader, 
a  citizen  first  of  all,  eager  to  have  a  hand  in  what- 


200  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ever  might  contribute  to  the  higher  life  of  his  city 
and  the  nation,  but  particularly  devoted  to  ministering 
to  the  broad  but  genuine  religious  life  of  his  church. 
He  is  best  known  for  his  studies  in  comparative  reli- 
gion. His  '*  Ten  Great  Religions "  is  perhaps  the 
first  notable  American  book  in  that  increasing  effort 
to  understand  the  religious  nature  and  aspiration  of 
the  race  and  regards  the  ethnic  faiths,  not  as  inven- 
tions of  Satan,  but  as  **  broken  lights,"  **  lame  hands 
of  faith  "  calling  to  Him  who  is  Lord  of  all. 

Edward  Everett  Hale  is  the  granite  of  New  Eng- 
land covered  with  mosses  and  lichens  from  which 
flows  a  spring  of  pure  water  giving  growth  and 
beauty  along  its  course.  He  was  the  intimate  friend 
and  companion  of  our  chief  literary  men,  a  constant 
writer  for  the  Atlantic  and  the  North  American,  bet- 
ter known  for  his  short  stories  such  as  "  A  man  with- 
out a  Country ''  and  **  In  His  Name  "  than  for  his 
sermons,  who  has  given  us  some  of  our  very  best 
sketches  of  the  men  and  events  of  our  early  national 
life.  But  he  was  an  effective  preacher.  He  was  a 
figure  of  the  national  pulpit.  His  heavy  eyebrows 
and  his  shaggy  head  gave  him  a  certain  leonine  appear- 
ance. And  it  was  expressive  of  the  mind  and  spirit 
within.  He  was  strong  and  tenacious  of  convictions, 
somewhat  dogmatic  and  belligerent,  but  as  so  often 
happens  with  such  rugged  natures,  a  tender  heart  and 
a  desire  to  help  that  was  the  ruling  spirit  of  his  life. 
Few  pulpits  have  been  so  openly  and  effectively  con- 
nected with  the  practical  efforts  of  Christian  philan- 
thropy and  reform  as  that  of  Edward  Everett  Hale. 

James  A.  Bartol  had  a  striking  physical  likeness  to 
Dr.  Hale,  but  was  thoroughly  original  as  man  and 
preacher.     He   was  classmate   at   Bowdoin   and   life- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        20I 

long  friend  of  Dr.  Cyrus  Hamlin,  the  great  mission- 
ary to  Turkey.  And  that  two  men  so  positive  and 
so  unlike  in  their  theological  position  should  always 
be  friends  is  a  large  working  of  charity.  That  Dr. 
Bartol  and  Horace  Bushnell  should  be  brought  to- 
gether in  intellectual  and  spiritual  sympathy  is  not 
such  a  wonder,  but  that  he  should  rejoice  in  the  work 
of  Father  Taylor  of  the  Sailor's  Bethel  speaks  large 
things  for  his  Christian  spirit.  Dr.  Bartol  had  a  bold 
imagination,  a  fiery  spirit,  a  vivid,  epigrammatic  style, 
and  spoke  of  Christian  duty  with  arresting  and  per- 
suasive force. 

I  will  speak  of  one  other  Unitarian  preacher  only 
recently  passing  from  us. 

Robert  Collyer  is  unlike  the  others  in  that  he  is  not 
a  New  Englander,  not  trained  in  the  literary  and 
philosophical  atmosphere  of  other  leaders,  not  at  all 
noted  as  a  writer.  A  preacher  by  gifts  and  single- 
ness of  devotion,  one  of  the  most  picturesque  figures 
in  the  American  pulpit.  "If  Daniel  Webster  had 
lived  beyond  his  allotment  of  threescore  years  and  ten, 
he  might  have  looked  very  much  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Rob- 
ert Collyer  did  yesterday  on  the  eve  of  his  eighty- 
eighth  birthday.  Robert  Collyer  was  a  blacksmith,  ap- 
prentice and  journeyman;  for  twenty-one  years  before 
he  took  a  church,  he  hammered  hot  iron  into  shape 
preparatory  to  molding  souls,  and  the  massive  shoul- 
ders, deep  chest  and  great,  thick  hands  still  bear  elo- 
quent evidence  of  those  early  manual  triumphs." 

Robert  Collyer  came  to  this  country  as  a  workman 
from  England  and  a  Methodist  lay  preacher.  He  was 
trained  in  the  school  of  life.  He  had  a  passion  for 
righteousness.  His  soul  abhorred  oppression  of  every 
kind.     And  when  the  Methodist  Bishops  forbade  his 


202  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

fiery  utterances  against  slavery,  his  natural  freedom 
and  humanity  turned  to  the  pulpit  that  was  then  the 
freest  in  its  utterances.  He  was  the  pioneer  Unitarian 
preacher  of  Chicago  and  organized  Unity  Church, 
which  has  had  a  line  of  gifted  preachers.  From  Chi- 
cago he  came  to  New  York  as  successor  of  Dr.  Bel- 
lows in  the  Church  of  the  Messiah,  of  which  he  was 
so  long  a  pastor  and  one  of  the  leading  figures  of  the 
metropolis.  I  have  never  heard  Dr.  CoUyer  preach, 
but  I  have  heard  him  pray  at  the  installation  of  one 
of  our  young  men  over  a  Congregational  church.  A 
more  child-like,  vital  and  catholic  prayer  I  never  heard. 
Every  devout  heart  would  have  to  respond  to  it.  He 
was  loved  by  all  who  knew  him.  He  was  recognized  as 
an  eloquent  interpreter  of  the  religious  nature  of  man. 

The  Unitarian  pulpit  has  had  an  influence  out  of 
all  proportion  to  its  members.  It  has  softened  and 
modified  the  dogmatic  spirit,  made  preaching  less  spec- 
ulative and  more  practical,  increased  the  humanness 
of  the  sermon;  in  dwelling  more  on  the  interpretation 
of  life,  the  religious  nature  and  expression  of  men, 
it  has  made  the  style  of  the  sermon  less  a  separate 
language  of  religion  and  more  in  harmony  with  the 
best  speech  of  men  everywhere;  and  as  it  regards  all 
life  and  its  forms  of  art  as  full  of  God,  it  has  greatly 
widened  the  material  and  subjects  of  preaching,  but 
sometimes  no  doubt  losing  the  direction  and  flow  of 
message  in  the  very  richness  of  material. 

Their  own  best  men,  now  that  the  smoke  of  contro- 
versy has  cleared,  will  .be  ready  to  admit  that  their 
champions,  in  days  of  more  acute  sectarian  strife,  dis- 
played rigor  in  their  work  of  rebuttal  difficult  to  recon- 
cile with  the  doctrines  of  "  sweetness  and  light "  that 
they  were  defending.  Even  so,  theirs  has  been  no 
mean  contribution  to  the  American  pulpit. 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        203 


The  Methodist  Pulpit 

The  first  service  of  John  Wesley  was  as  a  mission- 
ary to  the  colony  of  Georgia.  It  was  his  contact  with 
the  Moravians  in  America  that  powerfully  changed 
his  vision  and  life  and  made  him  a  prophetic  voice  to 
the  formal  and  critical  and  selfish  religion  of  the 
eighteenth  century  England  and  the  call  of  Christian 
manhood  to  its  degraded  and  hopeless  masses.  No 
doubt  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  is  right  in  calling  John 
Wesley,  judged  by  the  effects  of  his  life,  the  greatest 
Englishman  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  was  loyal 
to  the  Church  of  England.  He  had  no  idea  of  form- 
ing a  separate  church.  His  preachers  were  lay  preach- 
ers. It  has  some  correspondences  to  the  laymen's 
movement  to-day,  only  then  it  was  despised  and  op- 
posed by  the  authorities  of  the  Church. 

These  fervent  lay  preachers,  often  men  of  scant 
education  but  consuming  zeal,  soon  came  to  the  Amer- 
ican colonies.  At  first  they  formed  no  churches  and 
baptized  no  converts,  but  tried  to  bring  the  converts 
into  the  parish  church. 

The  most  notable  name  of  the  early  Methodist 
Church  in  America  was  Francis  Asbury.  He  came 
to  Philadelphia  in  177 1  as  a  lay  preacher.  There  were 
perhaps  three  hundred  Methodist  converts  scattered 
about  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  but 
no  organized  churches.  Without  special  training,  he 
had  used  his  gifts  of  speaking  in  England,  and  in 
America  constantly  trained  himself  in  his  work.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  the  majority  of  the 
Methodist  preachers  like  their  brethren  of  the  Church 


204  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

of  England  were  out  of  sympathy  with  the  colonists 
and  returned  to  the  Mother  Country.  Asbury,  demo- 
cratic in  his  feelings,  kept  his  place,  and  tried  almost 
alone  to  sustain  the  life  of  the  converts  through  the 
long  days  of  the  Revolution.  When  peace  came  and 
a  separate  national  life  began,  Wesley  felt  that  the 
time  had  come  for  a  separate  independent  church  in 
America  and  the  first  Methodist  Church  was  organ- 
ized in  Baltimore  in  1784.  Asbury,  who  had  been  a 
lay  superintendent  of  missions,  was  the  first  Bishop 
ordained  in  America.  Ceaseless  and  fearless  in  his 
efiforts,  he  covered  his  circuit  from  northern  New 
England  to  the  Carolinas  and  pushed  over  the  Alle- 
ghenies,  seeking  the  scattered  people  in  the  wilderness 
beyond.  No  doubt  he  spoke  a  fiery  evangel.  The 
very  rudeness  of  the  times  gave  emphasis  and  urgency 
to  his  word.  And  Bishop  Asbury  helped  to  make 
Methodism  the  very  symbol  for  the  pioneer  preacher. 
If  one  should  ask  for  the  name  of  the  typical  cir- 
cuit-rider of  frontier  states,  Peter  Cartwright  would 
have  that  name  beyond  all  others.  Such  a  man  Ed- 
ward Eggleston  has  put  into  his  novel,  **  The  Circuit 
Rider."  He  was  a  preacher  for  seventy  years  and 
for  fifty  he  was  the  presiding  elder  of  the  Illinois  dis- 
trict. The  state  was  sown  thick  with  stories  of  his 
shrewdness,  his  wit  and  his  courage.  The  old  settlers 
of  the  state,  now  very  few,  are  as  fond  of  telling  rich 
and  racy  stories  of  Peter  Cartwright  as  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  In  fact  they  had  much  in  common,  and 
sometimes  crossed  verbal  swords.  Cartwright  was 
once  defeated  for  Congress  by  Lincoln.  He  was  noted 
for  his  knowledge  of  men,  for  the  shrewd  but  kindly 
insight  into  the  very  heart.  His  reading  of  the  secret 
life  of  men,  like  the  insight  of  Spurgeon,  was  almost 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        205 

uncanny.  And  he  had  a  wit  that  could  laugh  away 
opposition  and  put  the  crowd  in  the  happiest  humor 
for  his  preaching  —  broad  sunshine  on  the  landscape 
making  it  fertile,  for  the  good  seed  sown  in  it;  or 
like  the  sharp  blade  of  conscience  opening  the  life  and 
subduing  men  in  terror  of  the  revelation.  He  had  a 
physical  energy  that  plowed  its  way  through  all  diffi- 
culties of  man  or  nature,  a  rough  and  ready  speech 
and  manner  that  was  fitted  to  his  backwoods  audiences, 
and  yet  at  the  same  time  won  the  reverence  of  men. 
He  was  the  master  of  camp  meetings,  and  if  he  failed 
to  subdue  the  rough  element  gathered  there  with  his 
tongue,  he  was  not  afraid  to  use  his  strong  hand. 
His  frank,  free,  homely  style  is  indicated  by  the 
following  extract  from  a  conference  speech  against  a 
Bishop  holding  slaves.  **  It's  all  humbug  that  if  a 
man  inherits  the  slaves  he  can  do  nothing  with  them. 
I  so  became  the  owner  and  shouldered  my  responsi- 
bility, resolved  to  be  like  Caesar's  wife,  above  suspi- 
cion, took  them  to  my  State,  set  them  free,  gave  them 
land  and  built  them  a  house,  and  they  made  more 
money  than  ever  I  did  by  preaching.  Talk  of  divi- 
sion !  I  hope  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  this  sickly 
talk.  I  do  not  believe  in  a  division  and  have  not 
from  the  first.  Why!  this  Methodist  Episcopal 
church  would  not  miss  me  any  more  than  an  ox  would 
miss  a  fly  off  his  horn." 

Until  recent  years  ^the  majority  of  the  Methodist 
ministry  have  been  uneducated  men.  The  Church  has 
ministered  to  the  neglected  and  the  ignorant,  it  has 
been  driven  by  the  spirit  of  fervent  evangelism  to 
conquer  the  multitudes,  and  it  has  not  been  able  to 
provide  well  trained  men  for  its  rapidly  multiplying 
congregations.     It  has  often  been  afraid  of  the  schools 


2o6  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

as  though  culture  would  take  the  heart  and  power  out 
of  its  preaching.  Its  method  has  called  out  men  of 
native  gifts  of  persuasion  and  leadership,  and  they 
have  often  gained  the  secrets  of  popular  appeal.  No 
doubt  they  have  spoken  best  to  their  own  people.  But 
with  the  growth  of  general  intelligence  and  refinement, 
men  have  been  demanded  who  could  speak  to  all  men, 
not  to  a  class.  Such  men  have  usually  had  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  schools.  The  Methodist  Church  has  not 
been  slow  to  make  suitable  provision  for  the  training 
of  its  preachers.  And  so  it  is  natural  that  the  men 
who  stand  out  from  their  fellows  should  be  so  largely 
connected  with  the  schools. 

Stephen  Olin  and  Bishop  Simpson  are  examples  of 
their  best  preachers. 

Stephen  Olin  was  the  first  President  of  Wesleyan 
University,  and  was  an  inspiring  example  to  the  men 
of  his  day  in  person  and  message.  He  declined  to 
be  a  Bishop,  preferring  the  large  service  of  teacher 
and  preacher.  He  was  a  man  of  giant  frame  and  his 
mind  had  some  kinship  with  his  body.  His  command- 
ing presence,  his  noble  character,  his  rich  thought,  his 
logical  argument  and  fiery  feeling  —  logic  on  fire  — 
the  definition  of  eloquence,  made  him  for  the  time  the 
leader  of  the  Methodist  people. 

But  the  prince  of  Methodist  preachers  for  the  last 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  Bishop  Mathew 
Simpson.  He  began  as  a  doctor,  and  this  experience 
gave  him  his  insight  into  human  need,  his  human  in- 
terest and  his  pictorial  power,  as  the  medical  studies 
helped  Guthrie.  He  passed  down  the  whole  line  of 
work  and  influence  in  his  own  church,  preacher,  col- 
lege professor,  editor,  bishop,  president  of  the  Theo- 
logical Seminary.     He  was  a  staunch  friend  of  Lin- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        207 

coin  and  of  great  service  to  the  Union  by  his  sermons 
and  speeches.  Bishop  Simpson,  like  all  the  others, 
was  an  extemporaneous  preacher.  He  had  as  much 
of  the  platform  and  the  stump  as  the  pulpit.  His  chief 
thought  in  it  all  was  the  winning  of  men.  Much  of 
the  divine  fire  has  gone  out  of  the  sermons  as  they 
have  out  of  the  speeches  of  Henry  Clay.  Phillips 
Brooks'  saying  that  *'  a  sermon  that  is  good  to  read 
is  not  good  to  hear ''  was  truer  of  Bishop  Simpson 
than  of  himself.  A  certain  fullness  of  style,  a  repe- 
tition for  all  kinds  of  people,  the  chaff  with  the  oats 
without  which  says  Th.  Fuller  the  horse  will  bolt 
his  meal  mark  the  sermons,  and  prevent  them  from 
the  interest  of  more  artistic  work. 

He  is  the  first  Methodist  who  gave  the  lectures  on 
Preaching  at  Yale  and  the  only  one  until  Bishop  Mc- 
Dowell in  recent  years.  A  single  page  on  the  power 
of  preaching  will  give  some  idea  of  the  variety,  the 
sweep,  the  swing  and  fervor  of  the  man. 

'*  The  long  line  of  preachers  extends  in  unbroken 
succession  from  Christ  himself  to  the  present  hour. 
A  line,  did  I  say?  More  than  a  line,  a  pyramid  of 
which  he  is  the  apex,  to  which  each  succeeding  year, 
rises  in  altitude  and  widens  in  its  base,  and  will  rise 
and  will  widen,  until  it  covers  all  lands,  and  the  living 
preacher  shall  be  seen  and  heard  by  every  child  of 
Adam  on  the  globe.  It  is  an  unbroken  succession, 
not  by  the  ordinations  of  men,  nor  by  the  hands  of 
men,  nor  by  the  will  of  men,  but  by  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  It  is  a  holy  fellowship,  a  glorious  asso- 
ciation. It  has  had  its  spots.  All  have  been  men  of 
like  passions  with  us.  Some  entered  the  ministry 
without  a  divine  call;  others  have  been  overborne  by 
passion.     Some  *  concerning  the  faith  have  made  ship- 


2o8  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

wreck,  of  whom  were  Hymaneus  and  Alexander/ 
*  Demas  hath  forsaken  me,  having  loved  this  present 
world.'  Peter  denied  his  master,  and  Judas  betrayed 
him.  Men  have  disgraced  themselves,  and  brought 
reproach  upon  the  office ;  but  it  still  lives  and  strength- 
ens, because  Christ  lives  with  it,  and  has  determined 
that  it  shall  stand.  He  walks  among  the  candlesticks 
and  holds  the  stars  in  his  right  hand.''  ^ 

It  is  not  my  purpose  in  this  volume  to  speak  par- 
ticularly of  living  preachers.  But  the  names  of  Bishop 
Vincent,  Bishop  Quale  and  Bishop  McDowell  and 
Bishop  McConnell  tell  us  that  the  old-time  fervor  and 
popular  sympathy  have  not  been  lost  but  tempered 
and  disciplined  to  newer  conditions. 

What  has  been  the  special  contribution  of  the  Meth- 
odists to  the  American  pulpit? 

Evangelical  zeal  and  fervor,  faith  in  the  Gospel  to 
reach  the  downmost  man,  the  use  of  testimony,  the 
witness  to  the  ministry  of  special  gifts,  the  power  of 
emotion  in  religion,  of  enthusiasm  in  preaching. 


The  Episcopal  Pulpit 

It  would  no  longer  be  said  of  the  American  Epis- 
copal Church  as  in  the  old  days  of  polemical  bitter- 
ness that  it  was  a  "  worldly  church  and  an  inferior 
pulpit."  It  was  not  true  even  then,  but  it  had  enough 
truth  to  give  the  saying  sting  and  wide  currency. 

The  Episcopal  Church  as  a  whole  has  never  been 
noted  for  its  pulpit.  A  few  gifted  men  in  recent  years 
have  given  a  glory  to  their  church  and  a  noble  impetus 

1 "  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  p.  35. 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        209 

to  preaching.  But  we  naturally  look  for  the  power  of 
the  pulpit  in  a  freer  church,  where  preaching  is  exalted 
and  the  preacher  is  made  to  feel  his  opportunity. 
"  Emphasis  upon  liturgy,"  says  Canon  Hensley  Hen- 
son  of  Westminster,  *'  is  not  conducive  to  effective 
preaching."  And  then  he  explains  that  the  develop- 
ment of  ritual  limits  the  thought  and  opportunity  of 
preaching,  and  trains  that  habit  of  mind,  attention  to 
form  and  organization,  opposed  to  the  largeness  of 
thought  and  feeling  essential  to  strong  preaching. 
Historically  it  is  true  that  as  organization  has  de- 
veloped and  ritual  has  increased,  the  pulpit  has  de- 
clined. So  Dr.  McConnell,  one  of  the  preachers  of 
the  Episcopal  Church,  has  said  in  one  of  their  Con- 
gresses, and  with  great  earnestness :  **  We  need  more 
prophets,  and  not  more  priests." 

The  Episcopal  Church  had  a  hard  time  until  after 
the  Revolution.  It  was  a  small  and  feeble  minority 
in  New  England,  and  though  it  was  in  the  majority 
in  Virginia  and  had  the  influence  of  royal  governors 
in  Virginia  and  New  York,  it  was  poorly  served. 
Clergymen  were  often  sent  to  the  colonies  who  had 
broken  down  at  home;  the  younger  brothers  of  noble- 
men, men  who  left  their  country  for  their  country's 
good,  brought  their  "  soiled  cassocks  "  into  the  colon- 
ies, to  use  the  phrase  of  Thackeray.  There  were  good 
men,  apostolic  men,  here  and  there,  who  kept  the 
spark  of  religion  alive  in  the  hostile  conditions  of 
pioneer  life,  but  the  rank  and  file  were  of  no  help  to 
the  Church. 

The  churches  were  separate,  without  general  organ- 
ization, with  no  Bishops,  missions  of  the  Mother 
Church,  and  of  little  concern  to  the  men  in  authority. 
When  James  Blair,  the  founder  of  William  and  Mary 


210  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

College,  urged  on  the  Treasury  Commissioner,  Sir 
Edward  Seymour,  that  such  an  institution  was  needed 
for  training  up  clergymen,  saying :  **  you  must  not  for- 
get that  people  in  Virginia  have  souls  to  save  as  well 
as  people  in  England,"  "  Souls ! "  cried  Seymour, 
with  an  oath,  **  grow  tobacco !  " 

So  during  the  colonial  days  the  Episcopal  pulpit 
had  a  slow  and  precarious  growth  and  during  the 
Revolution  it  was  almost  blotted  out,  many  of  its 
clergymen  returning  to  England  and  its  members  be- 
ing so  largely  loyalists. 

It  may  be  said  of  our  pulpit  as  of  our  literature, 
that  there  must  be  the  growth  of  a  national  life  and 
the  consciousness  of  that  life  before  there  can  be  the 
distinctive  and  fitting  expression  of  that  life.  Even 
the  colonial  pulpit  of  the  Congregational  Church  ex- 
pressed its  distinctively  American  life.  Its  earliest 
preachers,  Oxford  and  Cambridge  men  as  they  were, 
were  men  of  originality  and  freedom.  Without  dis- 
loyalty to  their  traditions,  they  were  in  the  New  World 
for  the  "  liberty  of  prophesying,"  and  guided  only  by 
their  Bible,  and  their  scholarly  training,  they  voiced 
in  their  own  way  the  needs  of  the  Church  in  the  wil- 
derness. So  there  was  an  American  pulpit  even  be- 
fore there  was  an  American  nation. 

But  the  Episcopal  Church  did  not  partake  of  this 
spirit.  The  scattered  churches  were  dependent  upon 
the  established  Church  of  England  and  the  preachers 
were  poor  copies  of  the  men  at  home.  There  was  no 
American  Church  and  no  American  pulpit.  It  has 
been  truly  said  that  the  Episcopal  Church  in  its  be- 
ginnings ''  was  handicapped  with  a  dead-weight  qf 
supercilious  and  odious  Toryism."  Here  and  there  a 
man  like  Samuel  Johnson,  the  tutor  at  Yale  who  be- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        211 

came  the  first  President  of  King's  College,  New  York, 
was  led  by  his  temperament  and  experience  to  seek 
a  church  that  expressed  the  succession  and  organic 
nature  of  Christianity,  and  proved  that  it  was  pos- 
sible to  be  an  Episcopal  minister  and  at  the  same  time 
a  distinctive  and  loyal  American. 

The  refusal  of  England  to  grant  an  Episcopate  to 
the  colonies  has  often  been  lamented.  Perhaps  the 
refusal  was  a  blessing  in  disguise,  for  what  sort  of  a 
Bishop  would  have  been  sent  by  a  minister  like  Sir 
Robert  Walpole! 

But  the  Episcopal  churches  revived  after  the  Revo- 
lution and  feeling  the  new  national  life  elected  Bish- 
ops of  their  own.  At  first  refused  ordination  by  the 
English  Bishops,  sulky  over  the  overwhelming  defeat 
of  the  British  arms.  Bishop  Seabury  of  Connecticut 
was  ordained  by  the  independent  Episcopal  Church  of 
Scotland,  and  White  of  Pennsylvania  and  Prevost  of 
New  York  soon  after  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. Thus  organized  the  American  Episcopal  Church 
started  upon  a  career  of  growing  numbers  and  worth 
and  influence. 

The  first  preacher  of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  na- 
tional and  even  international  reputation  was  Bishop 
Mcllvaine  of  Ohio. 

Charles  Pettit  Mcllvaine  was  of  Scotch  descent,  of 
a  family  distinguished  in  the  Revolution  and  in  the 
early  public  life  of  the  nation,  educated  at  Princeton 
College  and  Seminary  (there  was  then  no  Seminary 
in  his  own  church),  first  rector  of  a  church  in  Wash- 
ington, then  Chaplain  at  West  Point,  afterwards  rec- 
tor of  St.  Ann's,  Brooklyn,  from  whence  he  was  elected 
the  Bishop  of  Ohio,  and  served  forty  years,  the  best 
known  and  best  loved  of  all  American  Bishops  until 


212  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Phillips  Brooks  of  our  own  day.  He  was  converted 
at  Princeton  during  a  season  of  genuine  revival  and 
never  lost  the  mark  and  spirit  of  that  evangelical 
experience.  Writing  about  it  long  afterwards  he 
says :  ''  It  is  more  than  fifty  years  since  I  first  wit- 
nessed a  revival  of  religion.  It  was  in  the  College 
of  which  I  was  a  student.  It  was  powerful  and  pre- 
vailing, and  fruitful  in  the  conversion  of  young  men 
to  God;  and  it  was  quiet,  unexcited,  and  entirely  free 
from  all  devices  or  means,  beyond  the  few  and  simple 
which  God  has  appointed,  prayer  and  the  ministry  of 
the  word.  In  that  precious  season  of  the  power  of 
God,  my  religious  life  began.  I  had  heard  before: 
I  began  then  to  know." 

His  preaching  always  had  the  aim  and  the  fervor  of 
the  evangelist.  At  West  Point  he  first  met  the  cold 
indifference  or  the  bitter  opposition  of  officers  and 
cadets,  but  at  last  his  word  reached  the  conscience. 
Men  came  to  him  one  by  one  under  the  power  of  con- 
viction and  the  whole  place  was  moved,  the  fruits  re- 
markable in  devoted  Christian  lives,  both  in  the  army 
and  in  the  ministry.  Bishop  Lee  of  Delaware,  his 
life-long  friend,  has  given  the  picture  of  the  man  and 
the  preacher :  **  As  a  preacher,  his  fine  person,  grace- 
ful manner  and  elocution,  fervent  and  forcible  style, 
commanded  general  admiration,  and  rendered  his  min- 
istrations very  aittractive  and  acceptable.  The  phys- 
ical man  corresponded  well  with  the  intellectual,  and 
the  lovers  of  oratory  found  his  discourses  a  rich  treat. 
But  they  were  invested  with  a  power  and  a  charm 
far  exceeding  aught  conferred  by  the  gifts  of  nature 
or  the  fruits  of  culture.  His  aim  was  not  to  gratify 
the  ear  and  gratify  the  tastes  but  to  arouse  the  con- 
science and  convert  the  heart.     The  secret  of  his  sue- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        213 

cess  was  that  he  preached  with  unwonted  fervor  and 
faithfulness  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ.  He 
spoke  as  one  absorbed  and  penetrated  with  his  sub- 
lime and  awful  subject.  His  ministry  was  clothed  with 
power  because  it  was  full  of  reality  and  unction  — 
met  the  wants  of  awakened  souls  —  answered  great 
questions  stirring  in  the  depths  of  troubled  hearts, 
and  pointed  out  clearly  and  distinctly  the  way  of 
life." 

When  rector  in  Washington,  he  had  many  public 
men  in  his  church,  among  them  Mr.  Canning,  the 
English  minister  and  one  of  the  great  Parliamentary 
speakers  of  his  day.  Mr.  Mcllvaine  was  trying  to 
become  an  extemporaneous  preacher,  and  then  wrote 
his  sermons  in  full  or  in  part  and  then  memorized 
them.  Mr.  Canning  took  great  interest  in  the  young 
preacher  and  one  day  said  to  him :  **  Young  man,  you 
never  will  succeed  if  you  go  on  in  this  way.  Pre- 
pare your  thoughts,  have  a  distinct  idea  of  what  you 
mean  to  convey  to  your  hearers;  and  then  leave  the 
words  to  come  of  themselves."  Mr.  Mcllvaine  acted 
upon  this  advice  and  became  one  of  the  most  powerful 
extempore  preachers  of  his  day. 

Bishop  Mcllvaine  was  almost  as  well  known  in  Eng- 
land as  in  America,  preached  both  at  St.  Paul's  and 
Westminster  Abbey  and  was  honored  by  both  the  great 
Universities.  He  was  the  spiritual  child  of  Charles 
Simeon,  the  great  evangelical  preacher  of  Cambridge, 
even  as  Alexander  Duff  was  and  he  was  the  first 
American  to  be  thus  honored  by  the  English  Uni- 
versities. At  the  time  of  our  civil  war  he  went  to 
England  on  a  peace  mission.  He  did  not  have  Henry 
Ward  Beecher's  genius  and  daring  to  face  an  angry 
mob  and  subdue  them  by  his  speech,  but  he  was  no 


214  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

less  effective  in  winning  the  attention  of  the  English 
Church,  the  most  critical  towards  the  hopes  of  demo- 
cratic America. 

Bishop  Mcllvaine  died  in  Italy  and  his  body  rested 
for  a  time  in  Westminster  Abbey,  where  a  memorial 
service  was  held.  Of  this  event  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  wrote :  "  As  he  preached  in  St.  Paul's, 
so  I  rejoice  that  he  will  rest,  though  it  be  only  for  a 
time,  in  the  great  Abbey,  where  so  many  of  the  illus- 
trious dead  lie  waiting  for  the  resurrection,  whom,  in 
common  with  his  countrymen,  he  rejoiced  while  liv- 
ing to  reckon  as  brethren  of  the  same  blood.  Few 
even  living  have  done  so  much  to  draw  England  and 
the  United  States  together." 

Dr.  Alexander  H.  Vinton,  twice  pastor  in  Boston 
and  once  in  Philadelphia,  was  a  notable  figure  in  him- 
self, and  deserves  further  mention  as  the  early  pastor 
and  example  of  Phillips  Brooks,  and  later  his  friend 
and  trusted  counselor. 

'*  In  1842,  when  Dr.  Vinton  became  the  rector  of 
St.  Paul's  in  Boston,  Phillips  Brooks  was  six  years 
old,  and  from  that  time  until  he  graduated  from  Har- 
vard College  and  entered  upon  the  preparation  for 
the  ministry,  he  was  under  the  influence  of  this  strong 
personality.  Dr.  Vinton  had  a  majestic  appearance 
in  the  pulpit,  the  physical  basis  for  oratory.  His  voice 
corresponded  with  his  appearance,  strong,  rich  and 
full.  As  an  imposing  and  manly  representative  of  the 
clerical  profession,  he  was  imaged  in  bronze  upon  the 
Soldiers'  Monument  on  Boston  Common,  in  the  act 
of  blessing  the  troops  on  their  departure  for  the  war. 
He  was  of  the  evangelical  school,  enforcing  the  atone- 
ment of  Christ  and  the  supreme  doctrine  of  the  Gospel 
of  deliverance,  urging  also  an  inward  conversion  as 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        215 

the  condition  of  its  acceptance.  He  had  the  evangel- 
ical conception  of  the  pastor's  office.  It  was  to  him  a 
great  ideal,  which  he  had  left  the  medical  profession 
in  order  to  serve.'' 

After  the  death  of  Dr.  Vinton,  Phillips  Brooks 
preached  a  memorial  sermon  in  which  he  described 
the  pastoral  office,  as  embodied  in  Dr.  Vinton,  with 
rare  insight  and  beauty.^  *'  I  stop  a  moment  and  think 
of  that  great  pastorship,  of  all  it  meant  to  countless 
souls;  and  to  have  lived  in  it  and  carried  it  on  as  he 
did  seems  to  me  to  be  an  indescribable,  an  inestimable 
privilege.  A  great  pastorship  is  the  noblest  picture  of 
human  influence  and  of  relationship  of  man  to  man 
which  the  world  has  to  show.  It  is  the  canonization 
of  friendship.  It  is  friendship  lifted  above  the  re- 
gions of  mere  instinct  and  sentiment  and  fondness, 
above  all  thoughts  of  policy  or  convenience,  and  ex- 
alted into  the  mutual  helpfulness  of  the  children  of 
God.  The  pastor  is  father  and  brother  both  to  those 
whose  deepest  lives  he  helps  in  deepest  ways.  His 
belonging  to  his  people  is  like  the  broad  spreading  of 
the  sky  over  the  lives  of  men  and  women  and  little 
children,  of  good  and  bad,  of  weak  and  strong,  on  all 
of  whom  alike  it  sheds  its  rain  and  dew.  Who  that 
has  ever  known  such  a  pastorate  can  believe  that 
death,  which  sets  free  all  the  best  and  purest  things 
into  a  larger  spiritual  being,  ends  the  relationship  of 
soul  to  soul  which  a  true  pastorship  involves  ?  " 

Dr.  Stephen  H.  Tyng  of  New  York  was  another 
fervent  evangelist,  loyal  to  his  church,  but  more  de- 
voted to  preaching  than  to  liturgy  or  organization. 
He  was  rector  of  St.  George's ;  and  in  the  early  years 
gave  that  church  the  aggressive,  missionary  spirit,  that 

1  "  Life  of  Brooks,'*  i :  45- 


2l6  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ministry  to  present  need  and  surrounding  life  that  has 
been  developed  through  the  years  since  and  has  made 
St.  George's  one  of  the  best  expressions  of  practical 
Christianity.  Dr.  Tyng  was  an  effective  platform 
speaker  as  well  as  preacher.  He  used  evangelical 
methods  in  his  church,  he  was  a  fervent  advocate  of 
the  practical  reforms  of  the  day.  He  was  catholic  in 
his  sympathies  and  promoted  inter-church  agencies, 
such  as  the  Bible  Society  and  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 
He  was  a  force  for  a  more  united  and  aggressive 
Christianity. 

Dr.  Richard  Newton  of  Philadelphia  was  the  prince 
of  children's  preachers.  He  carried  out  the  theory 
of  the  Episcopal  Church,  that  children  were  to  be 
trained  as  Christians  and  into  active  membership  of 
the  Church.  Before  the  Sunday  School  had  been  fully 
organized  and  had  so  largely  filled  the  place  of  home 
and  pulpit  instruction,  Dr.  Newton  gathered  the  chil- 
dren of  the  congregation  and  taught  and  trained  them 
by  worship  and  preaching.  Six  volumes  of  the  chil- 
dren's sermons  have  been  published.  And  they  have 
not  been  surpassed  by  more  recent  books.  In  the 
choice  and  adaptation  of  truth  for  a  child's  mind,  in 
the  careful  discussion  of  this  truth,  in  the  wealth  of 
Bible  stories  and  illustrations  and  the  heroic  stories 
of  modern  life  that  especially  appeal  to  boys.  Dr. 
Newton  is  a  fine  example  of  the  preacher  to  youth. 

Bishop  Arthur  Cleveland  Coxe  is  a  different  type 
from  the  rest.  The  son  of  Dr.  Hanson  Cox,  a  leader 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  for  a  short  time  a 
Professor  in  Auburn  Seminary,  and  so  brought  up 
as  a  distinct  evangelical,  the  son  felt  the  influences 
of  the  Oxford  Movement  and  became  a  High  church- 
man.    He  was  the  most  effective  preacher  of  this  type, 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        217 

one  of  the  few  of  this  class  that  was  preeminently  a 
preacher.  No  doubt  the  example  of  his  father  and 
his  Presbyterian  training  with  his  native  gifts  kept 
him  from  depreciating  the  place  and  power  of  preach- 
ing. He  was  a  poet  and  wrote  many  hymns,  one  at 
least,  "  Oh !  where  are  Kings  and  Empires  now," 
seems  destined  to  be  sung  as  long  as  men  use  music 
in  worship.  He  had  the  artistic  and  historic  spirit, 
he  loved  beauty,  and  historic  places,  and  the  stately 
memorials  of  the  past,  and  he  was  fitted  to  give  a 
young  and  struggling  church  in  a  new  land  the  sense 
of  historic  continuity,  and  to  try  to  maintain  in  the 
growth  of  forms  the  essentials  of  the  religious  life. 
By  his  controversial  addresses,  his  essays  and  poems 
and  sermons.  Bishop  Coxe  did  much  to  shape  the 
Episcopal  Church  into  the  expanding  life  of  the  na- 
tion. 

Did  the  plan  permit,  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  dwell 
upon  living  preachers  who  give  distinction  to  the 
Episcopal  pulpit.  They  are  second  to  none,  espe- 
cially men  in  the  Episcopate.  Some  of  them  have  a 
prophetic  quality  and  are  a  fearless,  effective  voice 
to  the  social  conscience  of  our  day. 

The  distinctive  contribution  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
to  the  American  Pulpit  has  been  in  the  influence  of 
worship  upon  the  sermon  and  in  modifying  an  undue 
individualism  through  the  historic  and  social  spirit. 
The  strength  and  weakness  of  the  American  pulpit 
has  been  its  extreme  individualism.  The  Oxford 
Movement  emphasized  the  social  forces  of  religion: 
it  bound  men  together  and  to  the  past.  It  appealed  to 
imagination  and  historic  association.  It  taught  us 
that  religion  was  a  world  of  beauty,  that  worship  must 
be  in  keeping  with  the  highest  views   of   God,   and 


2l8  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

that  preaching  must  nourish  the  roots  of  reverence 
in  the  soul,  and  make  men  feel  the  continuity  of  faith 
and  the  unity  of  true  religion. 


The  Presbyterian  Pulpit 

Two  streams  of  influence  have  united  to  form  the 
Presbyterian  Church  of  the  United  States,  the  Puritans 
of  New  England  and  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians 
of  the  Middle  Colonies.  There  have  been  lesser  tribu- 
taries such  as  the  Huguenots  of  New  York  and  the 
Carolinas,  and  the  German  Reformed  of  Pennsylvania. 
But  the  chief  forces  are  Puritan  and  Scotch.  And 
they  have  given  the  Presbyterian  pulpit  distinctive 
qualities  and  a  worthy  history.  The  Puritans  brought 
their  purifying  zeal  and  independence  and  the  Scotch 
their  reverence  for  great  names  and  their  interest  in 
Creed  and  Church.  And  both  were  greatly  modified 
by  the  life  and  demands  of  the  New  World.  The 
Puritans  felt  the  need  of  association,  the  advantages  of 
a  stronger  form  of  church  government,  as  they  pushed 
westward  into  scattered  settlements,  and  easily  adopted 
the  Presbyterian  form  of  church  life.  The  Scotch- 
Irish  broke  through  their  reserve,  they  gained  ready 
adaptation  to  new  conditions,  the  natural  fervor  of  the 
race  flamed  out  to  meet  the  religious  indifference  and 
neglect,  the  moral  rudeness  and  laxity  of  the  fron- 
tiers. 

It  is  a  splendid  record  of  enterprise  and  fervid  de- 
votion —  the  Presbyterian  pioneers  —  matching  the 
energy  of  the  Methodist  circuit-rider,  and  carrying 
on  the  emotional  fervor  of  the  evangelist  with  the 
regard  for  instruction  and  government  characteristic 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        219 

of  the  Church.  Thompson,  in  his  history  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church,  speaking  of  the  rapid  growth  in  the 
settlements  of  New  York  and  Ohio,  gives  a  true  pic- 
ture of  the  energy  and  zeal  of  the  early  preachers: 

"  They  rode  on  long  circuits  through  the  pathless 
forests  or  over  unbroken  prairies,  where  the  bending 
of  the  stalks  of  grass  showed  the  trail.  They  slept 
at  night  under  a  tree,  beside  a  fire  kept  alight  to  scare 
off  beasts  of  prey;  or  they  shared  the  rude  shelter 
and  rough  fare  of  the  settler.  If  they  found  homes 
for  their  families  it  was  in  rude  shanties  of  two 
rooms  where  they  eked  out  existence  far  from  schools, 
physician  and  stores,  often  laboring  with  their  own 
hands.  They  met  every  form  of  resistance,  from 
stolid  indifference  to  avowed  infidelity.  They  encoun- 
tered drunkenness,  lewdness,  horse-racing,  gambling, 
and  Sabbath  breaking  in  the  newer  settlements.  But 
nothing  disheartened  them  or  broke  down  their  faith 
in  God  and  the  Gospel,  and  bit  by  bit  they  saw  better 
influences  become  pervasive,  and  the  order  of  a  Chris- 
tian civilization  replacing  the  wild  lawlessness  of  an 
earlier  day"  (p.  94). 

There  is  little  time  to  speak  of  men  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  our  church.  There  was  Tennant, 
whose  zeal  may  have  carried  him  to  excess,  but  whose 
labors  led  to  the  Log  College  and  a  more  thoughtful 
ministry.  Whittier  in  "  the  Preacher  "  has  drawn  the 
more  picturesque  features  of  the  man. 

And  Celtic  Tennant,  his  long  coat  bound 
Like  a  monk's  with  leathern  girdle  round, 
Wild  with  the  toss  of  unshorn  hair. 
And  wringing  of  hands,  and  eyes  aglare. 
Groaning  under  the  world's  despair. 


220  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

There  was  Davies,  whose  preaching  inspired  the 
eloquence  of  Patrick  Henry,  and  who  afterwards  be- 
came President  of  Princeton  College. 

But  the  most  notable  name  of  our  early  preachers 
was  John  M.  Mason  of  New  York.  The  popular  taste 
would  not  tolerate  the  read  sermon  and  yet  it  de- 
manded a  stately  and  elaborate  style,  and  so  the  preach- 
ing was  largely  memoriter.  He  had  an  openness  of 
mind  and  a  prescience  that  made  him  a  real  leader  of 
the  Church.  It  was  his  practical  wisdom  that  helped 
to  unite  various  Presbyterian  fragments  into  a  united 
church.  It  was  his  open-mindedness  that  made  the 
beginning  of  the  American  Sunday  School. 

The  line  of  progressive,  effective  preachers  was  car- 
ried on  by  Albert  Barnes  of  Philadelphia.  He  was 
the  object  of  theological  suspicion  and  judicial  trials 
for  heresy,  and  his  teaching  marked  the  growing  dif- 
ference between  the  two  wings  of  the  Church,  and 
finally  led  to  the  division  of  1837.  But  such  publicity 
and  the  critical  attitude  of  good  men  was  the  sorest 
trial  to  his  sensitive  and  sincere  nature. 

He  was  tall  and  slender,  of  refined  face  and  man- 
ner, without  the  physical  elements  of  the  orator  but 
making  his  impression  by  the  worth  of  his  thought, 
the  purity  of  his  spirit,  and  the  naturalness  and  sim- 
plicity of  his  style.  It  was  an  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual influence  as  in  the  case  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 
He  was  a  teacher  in  the  pulpit  but  had  great  weight 
from  the  loftiness  of  his  character. 

He  was  most  methodical  in  his  habits  and  prepared 
in  the  early  morning  commentaries  on  nearly  all  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  of  great  use  to  the  lay- 
men of  the  Church. 

He  had  a  sympathy  with  his  age  and  a  practical  un- 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        221 

derstanding  of  it  that  made  his  preaching  practical 
and  a  zeal  and  hopefulness  that  cast  its  light  over 
everything  that  he  did. 

I  now  mention  three  men,  all  active  in  the  last  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  illustrate  the  various 
forces  contributing  to  the  Presbyterian  pulpit  and  the 
variety  of  its  work,  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock,  John  Hall 
and  Theodore  L.  Cuyler. 

Dr.  Hitchcock  left  but  a  single  volume  of  sermons, 
**  Eternal  Atonement,"  the  twenty  sermons  that  he  felt 
most  expressive  of  his  message,  and  all  the  rest  he  de- 
stroyed. He  was  a  teacher  all  his  life,  at  Amherst, 
Bowdoin,  Andover  and  Union  Seminary;  rhetoric, 
ethics  and  p*hilosophy  and  church  history.  His  work 
gave  form  to  his  message.  He  was  an  occasional 
preacher,  and  as  such  his  preaching  cannot  be  judged 
by  the  growth  of  churches  and  the  number  of  follow- 
ers. But  he  lifted  the  tone  of  religious  life  wherever 
he  spoke.  He  permanently  influenced  men  untouched 
by  the  common  preacher.  And  he  gave  to  all  who 
knew  him  the  sense  of  the  worth  of  life  and  the  glory 
of  the  Gospel  that  could  never  be  forgotten.  He  al- 
ways spoke  the  essential,  catholic  truth  that  all  men 
needed  and  all  men  could  receive.  He  gave  it  with 
the  temper  and  finish  of  the  most  perfect  workman- 
ship, and  yet  no  finish  of  art  made  the  word  less  ef- 
fective for  use.  A  splendid  presence,  a  penetrative 
and  persuasive  voice,  a  spirited  manner,  a  wealth  of 
interpretation  in  instance  and  imagery  made  his  ser- 
mons an  event  "in  the  life  of  the  hearer. 

Dr.  John  Hall  was  the  most  notable  of  the  constant 
contributions  of  the  Mother  Country  to  our  pulpit.  A 
north  of  Ireland  man,  trained  in  her  schools,  a  coun- 


222  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

try  minister  and  then  pastor  in  Dublin,  he  came  to  the 
Fifth  Avenue  Church,  New  York,  in  the  fullness  of 
his  manhood.  He  was  a  great  pastor,  ministering 
to  all  alike  and  rarely  forgetting  names  and  faces. 
He  was  a  man  of  noble,  benignant  presence.  Like 
Phillips  Brooks,  the  very  face  and  presence  of  the 
man  was  eloquent.  He  had  generous  training  and 
great  diligence  and  the  gifts  of  public  speech  and  he 
made  all  contribute  to  his  preaching.  He  honored  his 
calling.  He  made  preaching  honorable.  He  always 
ministered  to  men  when  he  preached.  He  thought  of 
the  salvation  of  men  and  not  of  his  sermon.  He  never 
preached  great  sermons  but  he  was  a  great  preacher. 
"  He  always  seemed  to  walk  on  the  edge  of  the  com- 
monplace but  never  got  over  into  it."' 

Dr.  Theodore  L.  Cuyler  was  a  man  of  less  intel- 
lectual power,  but  of  quick,  warm  sympathies,  wide 
human  interests,  lively  fancy  and  intense  earnestness 
in  speaking.  His  sermons  combined  brightness  and 
spirituality.  In  his  prime  he  was  in  great  demand 
for  public  occasions,  and  was  not  afraid  to  espouse 
a  righteous  but  unpopular  cause.  He  is  a  good  ex- 
ample of  the  fervent,  practical,  spiritual  preaching  of 
our  best  pulpits. 

One  more  name  should  be  mentioned  —  Grosvenor 
Heacock  of  Buffalo,  the  prophet-preacher.  Of  com- 
manding presence,  the  voice  and  manner  of  an  orator, 
an  imagination  that  cut  through  the  crust  of  opinion 
to  the  heart  of  truth,  it  was  his  great  heart  that  made 
him  the  master  of  assemblies.  He  spoke  the  truth  as 
God  gave  him  to  see  it  and  he  won  a  multitude  to  the 
faith  of  his  master.  But  it  was,  as  the  interpreter  of 
Hfe,  the  will  of  the  living  Lord  to  social  and  national 
life  that  he  had  his  commission  and  won  his  supreme 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        223 

place.  His  conception  and  spirit  breathe  in  his  words : 
"  When  the  pulpit  shall,  in  this  land,  cease  to  be  a  light 
on  the  great  moral  and  political  questions  of  the  day, 
midnight  will  have  fallen  on  the  nation." 

Such  examples  cannot  be  comprehensive  and  com- 
plete. They  are  only  personal  selections  from  a  long 
list  of  men  who  have  exalted  and  honored  the  work  of 
the  pulpit. 

What  have  the  Presbyterians  done  for  our  national 
pulpit?  They  have  taught  the  teaching  power  of  the 
pulpit.  They  have  been  careful  to  teach  the  Scrip- 
tures. They  have  given  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  in 
systematic  form.  They  have  been  doctrinal  preach- 
ers, not  being  afraid  to  grapple  with  great  problems 
of  thought  and  so  they  have  contributed  to  a  thought- 
ful and  stable  Christianity. 

7 
Other  Contributions 

One  naturally  asks  why  the  Quakers  produced  no 
great  preacher.  They  ministered  over  large  parts  of 
Pennsylvania  and  the  South.  And  there  is  one  name 
that  cannot  be  forgotten  in  the  religious  history  of 
America,  that  of  John  Woolman,  mystic  and  ascetic. 
But  he  is  better  known  for  his  journal  than  for  his 
sermons.  Its  barrenness  of  preachers  is  explained  by 
Dr.  Bacon's  analysis  of  the  Quaker  Movement :  **  It 
was  never  able  to  outgrow,  in  the  large  and  free  field 
to  which  it  was  transplanted,  the  defects  incident  of 
its  origin  in  a  protest  and  a  schism.  It  never  learned 
to  commend  itself  to  men  as  a  church  for  all  Chris- 
tians, and  never  ceased  to  be,  even  in  its  own  con- 
sciousness, a  coterie  of  speciaHsts  "  (p.  145). 


224  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Other  Protestant  bodies,  the  Lutherans,  the  Re- 
formed, the  German  Reformed,  the  Disciple,  and 
others,  have  not  lacked  devoted  pastors  and  teachers. 
If  they  have  given  to  the  pulpit  few  names  of  national 
fame  and  influence,  it  has  been  largely  due  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  work.  They  have  men  to-day 
who  are  gladly  heard  and  recognized  as  national  forces. 

The  Catholic  Church  does  not  exalt  the  pulpit,  but 
now  and  then  a  priest  like  Dr.  McGlynn  and  Father 
Doyle  of  New  York  stand  out  as  effective  preachers. 
While  men  like  Bishop  Spalding  of  Illinois,  Arch- 
bishop Ireland  of  St.  Paul  and  Cardinal  Gibbons  of 
Baltimore  combine  great  administrative  gifts  with 
either  the  excellencies  of  the  essayist  or  the  preacher. 

The  Paulist  Fathers  have  exemplified  in  the  Catholic 
Church  some  of  the  highest  qualities  of  Protestant 
preaching. 

Even  this  brief  review  must  impress  us  with  the 
worthy  record  of  the  American  pulpit.  It  has  con- 
tributed to  the  higher  life  of  the  nation.  It  has  been 
the  quickener  and  trainer  of  the  intellectual  life.  The 
children  of  the  manse  have  been  our  first  literary  men, 
and  the  weekly  sermon  has  taught  the  people  to  think 
and  trained  that  ideality  and  taste  for  the  true  and 
beautiful  and  good  that  have  promoted  education  and 
cultivated  the  love  of  books.  The  pulpit  has  been 
one  of  the  strong  social  forces  of  our  life.  It  has 
taught  the  worth  of  the  individual  and  the  sacredness 
of  human  relations,  and  revealed  the  foes  of  our  peace, 
and  raised  its  voice  for  social  welfare.  In  critical 
times  the  pulpit  has  trained  the  forces  that  made  for 
liberty  and  national  unity.  It  was  the  powerful  revival 
preaching  of  Edwards  and  his  successors  that  gave  the 
unknown  and  neglected  man  his  sense  of  worth  and  to 


SOME  DISTINCTIVE  CONTRIBUTIONS        225 

the  Colonies  that  emotional  response  to  truth  that  made 
them  capable  of  asserting  their  rights  against  the  in- 
justice of  the  Home  Government,  and  feehng  the  stir- 
rings of  a  new  national  life.  And  it  was  the  power  of 
the  pulpit  in  the  fifties  that  awoke  the  conscience  of  the 
North  and  prepared  the  people  for  the  years  of  sacri- 
fice. And  the  pulpit  of  our  own  day  has  stood  for  that 
higher  nationalism,  for  the  ideals  of  justice  and  freedom 
and  brotherhood  that  have  made  America  a  force  for 
world-righteousness. 

The  pulpit  to-day  is  no  less  necessary  for  the  life 
of  the  people.  We  may  not  be  able  clearly  to  under- 
stand the  forces  that  are  preparing.  The  world  in- 
dustry, the  power  of  organization,  the  solidarity  of 
life,  the  rapid  modifying  of  American  ideals  by  the 
coming  together  of  all  nations  —  these  things  we  dimly 
feel.  Shall  they  not  demand  a  new  and  larger  appli- 
cation of  the  Gospel?  We  stand  in  a  noble  line.  We 
have  entered  into  the  labors  of  the  Fathers,  and  their 
unfinished  tasks.  To  carry  on  the  work  of  the  pulpit ; 
to  make  it  the  witness  and  teacher  of  the  religious 
life;  to  send  the  vivifying  and  ennobling  influence  of 
its  truths  through  every  part  and  province  of  our  na- 
tional life  is  the  highest  work  and  honor  that  can  come 
to  men. 


THE   PRESENT   AMERICAN    PULPIT 

There  has  been  no  intellectual  decadence  of  the 
American  pulpit.  If  the  minister  is  no  longer  the  in- 
tellectual master,  it  is  only  because  higher  education 
has  been  so  widely  diffused.  If  the  pulpit  is  no  longer 
the  chief  agent  of  culture,  it  is  because  the  means  of 
the  higher  life  have  been  so  multiplied.  If  the  pulpit 
seems  no  longer  the  authoritative  voice  of  public  opin- 
ion, it  is  because  preaching  is  far  wider  than  the 
Church.  It  is  the  voice  of  the  awakened  moral  life 
of  the  age.  A  President  reiterates  the  primary  prin- 
ciples of  public  morality,  or  interprets  diplomacy  in 
the  light  of  Christian  brotherhood.  A  Governor  calls 
the  citizenship  of  a  state  to  a  finer  responsibility.  An 
editor  or  a  novelist  voices  the  dim  and  confused  striv- 
ings of  an  age,  or  calls  for  deeper  reality  in  religion. 
Since  Plymouth  Rock,  preaching  has  never  been  a 
greater  element  than  now. 

The  pulpit  thinks  as  much  as  ever,  and  more  men 
are  trained  for  their  work.  Great  branches  of  the 
Church,  like  the  Baptists  and  the  Methodists,  that 
fifty  years  ago  were  served  by  a  multitude  of  good 
but  untrained  men,  have  made  increasing  intellectual 
demands  upon  their  ministry. 

The  Theological  Seminary,  naturally  conservative 
in  method,  has  felt  the  spirit  and  principles  of  the 
new  education.  The  field  of  thought  is  far  wider; 
it  has  opened  its  doors  to  a  multitude  of  subjects  re- 
lated to  our  modern  life.     The  temptation  no  doubt 

226 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  2.27 

is  to  a  smattering  of  many  things  and  a  mastery  of 
none.  But  many  of  them  are  interests  vital  to  reli- 
gion. And  strong,  faithful  men  are  made  stronger 
by  them. 

The  widening  of  the  interests  of  religion,  the  fel- 
lowship with  great  thinkers  and  writers,  the  forma- 
tion of  truer  taste,  all  have  left  their  mark  upon  the 
pulpit. 

Of  course  there  are  men  who  say  foolish  things, 
who  appeal  to  prejudice  and  false  sentiment,  who 
show  themselves  in  the  place  of  the  truth,  who  have 
exaggeration  and  diffuseness  and  other  elements  of 
unreality  in  style.  But  compare  the  average  sermon 
of  fifty  years  ago  with  that  of  to-day.  The  present 
sermon  has  more  practical  thinking,  if  not  so  much 
high  speculation,  and  is  clothed  in  appropriate  speech, 
not  a  peculiar  dialect  of  religion,  but  the  clear,  pic- 
torial and  attractive  speech  that  men  put  into  the  best 
conversation  and  the  best  books.  There  have  been 
great  masters  of  style  in  the  past  and  we  can  always 
learn  from  them;  wells  of  English  pure  and  undefiled 
from  which  will  always  flow  sweet  waters,  but  the 
present  is  a  gain  in  directness  and  simplicity,  in  va- 
riety and  genuineness,  in  fine  feeling  and  persuasive- 
ness. You  can  feel  that  even  by  taking  the  notable 
preachers.  Making  all  allowance  for  the  difference  of 
personality  and  times,  you  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  former  days  are  not  better  than  these. 

There  were  masters,  and  I  have  tried  to  interpret 
their  work  from  Jonathan  Edwards  to  Phillips  Brooks. 
It  may  be  that  no  great  master  will  rise  from  the  mul- 
titude of  preachers  to-day.  But  that  we  have  such  a 
multitude  of  men  of  light  and  leading  is  cause  for  pro- 
found gratitude  and  hope.     No  equal  number  in  the 


228  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

past  have  surpassed  them  in  vigorous  thought  and  in 
mastery  of  speech.  For  four  and  five  years  before 
the  War  we  had  resident  preachers  every  month  — 
thirty  to  forty  in  all,  from  many  denominations.  And 
I  would  like  to  testify  to  the  fine  manhood  and  vital 
message  of  these  men.  Very  few  of  them  failed  of 
our  high  expectation. 

There  has  been  no  mor&l  decadence  in  the  Ameri- 
can pulpit.  Free  men  speak  the  word  and  not  hire- 
lings. The  ministry  witnesses  to  the  power  of  moral 
ideals. 

On  every  hand  there  is  testimony  that  it  is  not  an 
easy  time  to  live  a  simple,  pure,  unselfish  life,  to  be 
a  servant  of  men.  The  widening  of  the  horizon  of 
thought,  awakening  problems  that  refuse  to  be  stated 
wholly  under  the  conventional  terms  of  faith,  the 
breaking  down  of  the  barriers  of  isolation  and  the 
coming  in  upon  American  life  of  other  standards  of 
living,  the  multiplying  of  the  means  of  enjoyment, 
the  hard  maxims  of  commercial  greed,  the  subtle  and 
refined  selfishness  that  sometimes  seems  almost  like 
the  encompassing  atmosphere  of  modern  fife  —  all 
these  have  never  seriously  lowered  the  tone  of  the 
pulpit.  Single  ones  have  become  worldly,  but  the  min- 
istry as  a  class  have  tried  to  build  after  the  pattern 
seen  in  the  Mount.  And  the  conception  of  this  heav- 
enly life  seems  rather  to  have  grown  in  the  mind  of 
the  ministry.  You  have  but  to  contrast  any  large 
group  of  men  with  that  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  years 
ago  to  know  that  the  working  ideals  of  the  ministry 
are  lofty.  There  is  care  for  personal  conduct.  As 
the  authority  of  the  mere  position  is  felt  to  be  less, 
the  man  strives  to  be  more.  As  the  speech  of  the  pul- 
pit is  not  accepted  on  authority,  but  tested  like  any 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  229 

other  speech,  there  is  a  new  striving  to  make  the  mes- 
sage conform  to  the  truth.  As  the  pulpit  has  grown 
in  true  humiHty  and  is  no  longer  willing  to  dogmatize 
about  some  subjects  that  seemed  clear  and  certain 
as  noonday  to  the  fathers,  the  emphasis  has  rested 
upon  other  questions  of  practical  living.  Our  pulpit 
stands  out  for  its  ideality.  The  sermon  holds  up  a 
lofty  ideal  of  living,  and  the  preacher  means  what  he 
says,  and  preaches  first  to  himself. 

I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  modern  pul- 
pit has  gained  greatly  in  what  Dr.  Watson  calls  the 
humanness  of  preaching.  It  begins  to  discuss  truth 
from  the  standpoint  of  man,  from  his  nature  and  need 
and  actual  experience.  It  does  not  lower  the  demands 
of  the  truth,  the  authority  of  God's  word,  but  it  more 
frankly  admits  the  difficulties  of  belief  and  life,  the 
limitation  of  human  power,  and  tries  to  make  truth 
reasonable  and  so  present  it  that  it  will  seem  desirable 
and  possible. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  more  interest  in  life  than 
theology.  It  does  not  mean  any  the  less  that  we  need 
to  know  God  and  have  the  help  of  God,  but  that  re- 
ligious truth  is  looked  at  from  our  standpoint.  It 
tries  to  take  the  position  of  the  race,  the  attitude  of 
God  in  the  Incarnation,  expressing  the  essential  unity 
of  God's  nature  with  man,  that  God  does  what  a  man 
would  like  to  do  at  his  best.  It  holds  that  theology 
is  Christocentric.  '*  Through  Man  to  God,"  the  title 
of  sermons  by  Dr.  Gordon,  expresses  the  attitude  and 
process  to-day.  And  such  certainly  is  the  message 
of  the  best  of  our  pulpits. 

Take  up  any  good  volume  of  sermons  and  you  will 
see  this  absorbing  interest  in  life.  The  subjects 
chosen,  the  illustrations  used,  the  manifest  motive  felt 


230  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

through  it  all,  have  to  do  with  life,  life  as  we  feel  it 
to-day  in  its  complex  and  organic  relation. 

Facing  the  Dawn,  The  Passing  of  Opportunity,  Re- 
deeming the  Time,  The  Social  Epiphany  —  sermons 
from  a  volume  of  George  Hodges.  The  Actual  and 
the  Ideal,  The  Impossible  Commandment,  The  Sin- 
fulness of  Worry,  Christianity  and  Wealth,  from 
**Doctrine  and  Deed  "  by  Dr.  Jefferson.  Moral  Lead- 
ership, Moral  Responsibility,  Moral  Privilege,  The 
Church  in  the  House,  all  from  a  volume  by  Dr. 
Leighton  Parks  of  St.  Bartholomew's. 

And  these  titles  are  significant  of  the  characteristic 
accent  of  the  pulpit  of  to-day.  There  is  not  less  of 
God  but  more  of  man,  more  understanding  of  man, 
more  adaptation  to  man,  more  faith  in  the  Divine 
capacity  of  man  and  God's  Spirit  actually  working 
v^ith  the  faculties  of  man  and  through  the  process  of 
human  life,  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  Christianity 
is  first  of  all  a  life,  a  divine  life  among  men,  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  something  here,  and  that  its 
ideal  is  to  be  progressively  realized  by  forces  now 
working  in  human  hearts.  And  if  men  can  thus  in- 
terpret the  spiritual  meaning  of  life,  they  will  know 
that  they  cannot  live  by  bread,  but  by  every  word  that 
proceedeth  from  the  mouth  of  God. 

A  few  quotations  from  recent  sermons  will  show 
this  keen  and  sympathetic  observation  of  life  and  the 
speaking  of  the  divinest  truth  in  the  terms  of  human 
experience. 

"  Ideals  we  do  not  make.  We  discover  them,  not 
invent  them.  *  See  that  thou  make  them  after  the 
pattern  that  was  showed  thee  in  the  Mount.'  That 
command  comprises  all  commands.  It  enjoins  it  upon 
us  to  make  the  ideal  real :  to  be  men  in  the  divine  way. 


•     THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  231 

Once  it  has  been  done :  in  Galilee.  The  ideal  and  the 
real  met  in  Jesus.  He  could  say,  Follow  me.  Be  ye 
therefore  perfect,  he  said  to  the  men  about  him. 
Looking  unto  Jesus,  wrote  the  Apostle." 

We  cannot  mistake  the  suggestive,  vital,  virile  way 
that  Dr.  Parkhurst  lays  hold  of  the  truth  of  the  Gos- 
pel and  of  human  life  and  shows  their  exact  and  so 
divine  fitness  to  each  other. 

Here  is  a  passage  on  **  The  Moral  Conflict,"  urging 
the  fact  of  God  indwelling  as  a  motive  to  endeavor: 

**  The  task  is  still  hard,  and  we  have  to  struggle 
and  fight,  and  so  often  to  fight  alone  with  no  one  else 
to  see,  in  our  little  secret  obscurities,  in  our  little  se- 
cret dwelling-places,  with  no  one  else  to  know  how 
hard  it  is,  no  one  else  to  help  and  cheer  us  on  and 
applaud  us.  Yet  we  see  now  and  know  what  that 
treasure  is  which  we  are  fighting  for:  and  the  evil 
desire  ungranted  and  the  evil  word  unspoken  and  the 
self-indulgence  restrained  and  the  passionate  speech 
suppressed  and  the  lust  of  the  flesh  denied,  the  cause 
good  and  right,  that  seems  so  hopeless,  helped  —  it  is 
God;  it  is  the  gold,  men  and  women,  separated  from, 
purified,  refined,  coming  out  of  the  dirt,  or  out  of  the 
hard  and  rocky  quartz,  and  making  us  very  rich. 
That  is  the  treasure  which  we  have  within  us.  Let 
us  see  and  call  it  that.  Then  we  shall  know  what  it 
is  we  are  doing  or  what  we  are  failing  to  do;  that 
when  we  give  expression  to  the  moral  life  within  us 
we  are  giving  expression  to  the  God  within  us;  that 
when  we  reveal  and  body  forth  that  moral  life  in  our 
flesh  and  blood,  that  when  in  doubt  and  darkness  and 
perplexity  we  yet  believe  and  trust  in  and  cast  our- 
selves upon  that  moral  life  within  us,  we  are  believing 
and  trusting  in  and  casting  ourselves  on  God;  that 


232  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

when  we  disregard  it  and  are  careless  and  heedless 
about  it,  when  we  think  it  of  little  worth,  when  we 
neglect  it  and  throw  it  away,  we  are  thinking  God  of 
little  worth,  we  are  throwing  away  the  greatest  treas- 
ure which  this  universe  can  give  us  and  has  given 
us  —  we  are  throwing  God  away."  ^ 

Here  is  the  thought  of  moral  struggle  put  in  a  new 
way,  the  eternal  truth  put  into  the  form  of  present 
thought  of  God,  and  spoken  in  a  simple  and  sympa- 
thetic directness  that  must  carry  the  sense  of  reality 
to  every  person. 

Take  this  passage  from  Dr.  Jefferson  on  the  high, 
mysterious  truth  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  *'  Jesus  did  not 
say  much  about  the  Holy  Spirit  until  he  neared  the 
end  of  his  life.  It  was  not  until  he  came  into  the 
Upper  Chamber,  at  the  very  end  of  his  career,  that 
he  brought  out  in  all  its  fullness  the  great  doctrine 
which  was  to  bring  courage  and  life.  The  disciples 
sat  round  him  broken-hearted.  It  seemed  as  if  all  the 
stars  had  fallen  from  the  sky.  In  every  soul  there  was 
anxiety  and  forebodings  and  fears.  It  was  then  that 
Jesus  began  to  speak  to  them  about  the  other  helper 
that  would  abide  with  them  forever.  And  as  he  spoke 
all  the  room  became  light  again,  and  the  chill  in  the 
air,  which  had  been  put  there  by  doubt  and  fear, 
melted  away  in  the  glow  of  the  summer  which  his  new 
teaching  created. 

*'  We  are  living  in  dark  and  troubled  times.  One  can- 
not pick  up  a  paper  or  a  book  without  reading  some- 
thing of  the  horrible  materialism,  the  greedy,  grasp- 
ing commercialism  of  our  age.  Men  everywhere  are 
in  dismay  because  of  the  complexity  and  multitude  of 
our  social  and  religious  problems.     There  is  no  mes- 

1  "  From  Things  to  God,"  Bishop  Greer,  p.  144. 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  233 

sage  so  helpful  and  so  strengthening  which  the  Church 
can  possibly  give  to  the  people  as  just  this  message 
which  lies  embodied  in  our  text,  *  Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Spirit.' 

"  See  what  he  does.  Jesus  told  his  disciples  that  the 
other  helper  would  do  these  four  things,  and  for  nine- 
teen centuries  he  has  been  doing  them,  even  as  Jesus 
did. 

'* '  He  shall  teach  you  all  things.'  Does  he  teach 
you?  The  teacher  in  the  school  stands  behind  the 
desk  at  which  sits  the  little  boy  puzzling  his  head  over 
a  sum  which  is  difficult  to  do,  and  the  teacher  leads 
him  along  step  by  step,  correcting  his  blunders  and 
making  luminous  the  way.  Do  you  believe  there  is  a 
teacher  standing  by  your  side  teaching  you  day  by 
day  how  to  do  the  things  that  are  difficult  to  do  ?  '  He 
shall  guide  you  into  all  truth.'  We  cannot  get  into 
truth  at  a  bound,  we  must  be  led  into  it  a  step  at  a 
time.  There  is  one  who  goes  before  us  pointing  out 
the  way  throwing  light  upon  the  path  where  our  next 
step  shall  fall.     Does  he  guide  you? 

'*  *  He  shall  glorify  me.  He  shall  take  the  things  of 
mine  and  show  them  unto  you.'  When  we  are  most 
under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  see  no 
man  but  Jesus  only.  In  our  lower  moods  the  various 
characters  of  history  seem  attractive  to  us,  but  in  our 
highest  moods  there  is  but  one  who  is  altogether  lovely, 
and  that  is  the  man  of  Galilee.  Saints  in  their  dying 
hours,  when  the  old  earth  falls  away,  and  the  loved 
faces  are  lost  in  the  mist,  see  what  our  eyes  are  not 
permitted  to  behold,  the  King  in  his  beauty.  Does 
the  Holy  Spirit  glorify  our  Lord  for  you?  Through 
the  last  ten  years,  for  instance,  has  his  character 
seemed  increasingly  majestic?    Has  his  face  to  you 


234  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

grown  more  tender  and  beautiful?  Have  you  received 
the  Holy  Spirit? 

** '  He  dwelleth  with  you  and  shall  be  in  you.'  That 
is  the  greatest  promise  of  them  all.  He  is  not  only 
the  teacher  by  our  side,  and  the  guide  who  goes  be- 
fore, and  the  revealer  of  spiritual  things,  but  he  is 
the  guest  of  the  heart.  He  gives  a  peace  that  the 
world  cannot  give.  He  breathes  into  the  soul  a  joy 
which  the  world  cannot  take  away.  He  creates  a 
blessedness  that  cannot  be  expressed.  Does  he  dwell 
in  you?  Would  it  be  so  difficult  to  forgive  and  for- 
get if  you  had  received  the  Holy  Spirit?  Would  it 
not  be  easier  to  be  patient,  courageous  and  true,  to 
turn  away  from  everything  that  is  mean  and  con- 
temptible and  low,  if  you  had  opened  your  heart  to 
this  other  helper?  Alas  for  you,  if  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  not  your  teacher,  not  your  guide,  not  your  revealer, 
not  a  guest  in  the  soul."  In  this  perfectly  natural, 
human,  convincing  way  does  Dr.  Jefferson  interpret 
the  greatest  fact  of  experience  —  the  truth  that  cannot 
be  proved. 

One  more  brief  extract,  this  from  Dr.  Leighton 
Parks  of  St.  Bartholomew's,  New  York. 

"  '  Watch  —  be  on  the  lookout  —  for  ye  know  not 
when  the  son  of  man  will  come,'  not  to  destroy  but 
to  bless.  Why  should  it  not  be  so?  To  some  of  you 
in  this  coming  year  will  come  a  new  and  beautiful  life. 
Some  woman  will  press  a  babe  to  her  breast,  some  man 
will  have  opened  before  him  larger  opportunities  for 
showing  what  sort  of  man  he  is.  Some  of  us,  I  hope, 
will  change  our  sense  of  value  and  think  that  good- 
ness is  the  best  thing  in  the  world.  Some  of  you  will 
know  something  of  what  it  means  to  be  near  God. 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  235 

The  Son  of  Man,  the  Divine  Spirit  in  human  life, 
will  come  to  you." 

Such  teachings  make  the  wayside  bush  aflame  with 
God  and  sacraments  of  the  spirit  out  of  the  common 
experiences  of  life. 

This  sermon  is  marked  by  simplicity,  directness, 
charm  —  above  all  humanity,  direct  appeal  to  the  spir- 
itual faculties  of  man  and  faith  in  their  capacity  — 
in  the  Holy  Spirit  working  with  every  honest  effort 
of  man. 

I  think  that  variety  should  be  noted  as  another  char- 
acteristic of  the  American  pulpit. 

We  have  no  longer  a  single,  commanding  mind,  as 
Edwards  in  the  eighteenth  century  or  even  Bushnell, 
or  Beecher  or  Brooks  in  the  nineteenth  to  form  defi- 
nite ideals  of  message  and  method,  and  to  be  studied 
and  followed  in  definite  laws  for  the  common  man. 

As  life  has  become  more  complex  and  multiform, 
so  it  is  more  individual.  And  as  the  critical  spirit 
has  destroyed  mere  external  authority  and  driven  men 
inward,  to  seek  for  deeper  realities,  the  sense  of  per- 
sonal message  has  been  strengthened,  each  man  has 
prophesied  "  according  to  his  proportion  of  faith." 
So  the  American  pulpit  presents  a  greater  variety  of 
individual  types  than  ever  before. 

There  are  so  many  good  preachers  —  more  than 
ever  before,  good  in  the  sense  of  presenting  a  living 
truth,  and  a  truth  that  comes  from  their  life  —  in  a 
wealth  of  attractive,  persuasive  forms,  that  it  is  no 
longer  possible  for  one  man  to  tower  so  much  above 
the  rest.  The"  absence  of  striking  figures  is  not  due 
to  the  poverty  of  the  pulpit  but  to  its  excellence. 

And  so  we  have  many  representative  men  —  preach- 


236  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ers  that  are  men  for  occasions  like  Dr.  Cadman  of 
Brooklyn,  Bishop  McDowell  of  the  Methodist  Church ; 
men  that  preach  to  special  audiences  as  College  men, 
like  Hugh  Black  or  Dr.  Fitch  or  Dean  Brown  of  Yale ; 
preachers  to  the  reason  and  the  conscience  like  Dr. 
Parkhurst  and  Dr.  Jefferson;  men  who  address  the 
common  needs  and  instincts  of  men  like  Bishop  Brent ; 
men  who  appeal  to  the  emotions  like  Bishop  McCon- 
nell;  men  who  unfold  the  Scriptures  like  Dr.  Kirke 
of  Baltimore.  Men  of  the  old  theology  like  Dr. 
Goodell  and  Dr.  Woelfkin ;  men  of  the  newer  theology 
like  Dr.  Gordon  and  Henry  Sloan  Coffin ;  men  of  rich 
rhetorical  gifts  like  Dr.  Hillis;  men  of  scientific  plain- 
ness and  precision  like  Lyman  Abbott;  men  with  the 
social  message  like  Bishop  Williams  and  John  Haynes 
Holmes  and  Rabbi  Wise.  Such  names  suggest  the 
fullness  and  many  sidedness  of  the  American  pulpit. 
The  man  who  sees  in  the  modern  pulpit  signs  of  decay, 
and  talks  of  the  giants  of  former  days,  must  be  singu- 
larly lacking  in  appreciation. 

It  would  be  easy  to  mention  a  hundred  names  from 
different  churches,  many  from  the  Central  West,  who 
are  carrying  on  the  best  traditions  of  the  American 
pulpit.  I  hope  it  will  not  seem  invidious  to  mention 
a  small  group  of  the  Church  with  which  the  writer 
is  most  familiar. 

I  doubt  if  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  New  York 
was  ever  served  by  four  men  superior  to  Henry  Sloan 
Coffin,  John  Kelman,  Dr.  William  L.  Merrill  and  Dr. 
Fosdick.  Dr.  Kirke  of  Baltimore  is  an  inspiring  ex- 
ample of  expository  work.  And  men  like  Dr.  Mac- 
Caull  of  Philadelphia,  Charles  Wood  of  Washington, 
William  R.  Taylor  of  Rochester,  William  V.  V. 
Holmes  of  Buffalo,  John  Timothy  Stone  of  Chicago 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  237 

make  us  grateful  and  hopeful  for  the  American  pul- 
pit. 

If  our  pulpit  has  not  lost  in  intellectual  power,  or 
elevation  of  life;  if  it  has  gained  in  humanity,  and 
in  variety;  in  the  understanding  of  human  life  and 
deep  sympathy  with  it,  and  through  its  varied  per- 
sonality, the  power  to  present  truth  to  the  manifold 
nature  and  need  of  humanity  —  then  surely  we  must 
expect  a  greatly  increased  power  from  the  modern 
pulpit. 

Here  our  analysis  seems  to  fail.  The  effect  upon 
men  does  not  seem  in  keeping  with  what  we  have 
claimed  as  the  worth  of  the  pulpit.  Think  of  the 
thousands  of  pulpits  (to  paraphrase  Robertson)  that 
speak  in  our  land  every  Sunday  what  each  preacher 
considers  the  truth  of  Christ.  Is  it  God's  word  that 
is  preached?  Has  He  changed  His  purpose?  Has  He 
ceased  to  care  for  man?  And  does  He  no  longer  in- 
tend that  His  word  shall  not  return  to  Him  void? 
Yet  where  is  the  divine  evidence  that  it  is  His  word 
which  is  preached,  as  shown  in  hearts  quickened  and 
aroused  about  their  Father's  business? 

Why  does  the  American  church  halt  in  its  onward 
course  —  and  halt  it  has  —  if  the  preaching  is  what 
it  ought  to  be? 

There  is  a  widespread  criticism  of  the  pulpit.  Some 
men  say  the  pulpit  must  stop  preaching  social  ethics 
and  return  to  the  old  doctrines.  The  sense  of  sin 
is  lacking  in  modern  life  and  that  can  only  be  pro- 
duced by  the  old  theology.  Others  say  present-day 
topics  have  crowded  out  Scriptural  instruction.  There 
is  preaching  to  sentiment  and  fancy,  but  not  to  con- 
science and  will.  It  is  a  frequent  criticism  in  current 
literature   that  the  preacher   suffers    from   aloofness. 


238  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

He  does  not  get  honest  criticism  and  so  he  often  fails 
to  present  the  truth  to  exact  needs.  I  do  not  think 
any  of  these  criticisms  go  deep  enough.  They  are  not 
the  real  cause  of  so  much  of  the  apparent  futility 
of  preaching. 

The  truth  is  we  are  living  in  a  transition  period. 
The  subtle  materialism  and  the  critical  spirit  and  the 
social  unrest  affect  the  Church.  But  apparent  loss 
may  be  real  gain.  In  the  process  the  vision  of  Christ 
is  being  clarified,  and  the  conception  of  the  Kingdom 
enlarged. 

Dr.  John  Watson  in  an  address  at  Aberdeen  Uni- 
versity on  *'  The  Return  to  the  Gospel,"  showed  the 
influence  of  criticism  and  the  High  Church  idea  in 
weakening  the  power  of  the  Gospel  message.  Criti- 
cism had  to  come  —  the  necessary  transition  from  dog- 
matism to  religion  —  but  the  critical  spirit  is  not  the 
evangelizing  spirit.  The  High  Church  idea  was 
needed  and  it  has  done  good,  but  it  obscures  the  idea 
of  the  prophet. 

The  Gospel  will  be  rethroned,  said  Dr.  Watson. 
**  For  a  while  the  Gospel  has  gone  into  exile  and 
ceased  to  have  its  ancient  power.  It  is  coming  back 
again  to  the  throne,  and  the  day  of  its  tribulation  will 
not  have  been  lost,  when  we  welcome  before  we  die, 
and  our  children  after  us,  a  still  more  generous  and 
convincing  Gospel.  It  will  have  gained  a  wider  vision 
and  a  more  gracious  charity.  It  will  declare  a  more 
gracious  God,  a  more  human  Christ,  a  more  hopeful 
message.  There  is  no  man  who  ought  not  to  pray 
and  hope  for  its  new  advent,  since  it  will  mean  the 
rebirth  of  faith.  The  days  of  chilling  doubt  and  un- 
certain speech  will  have  passed  away.  .  .  .  Preachers 
will  again   stand  in  the  pulpit  as  the  messengers  of 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  239 

God,  rebuking  men  boldly  for  their  sins  in  the  name 
of  the  Eternal,  and  assuring  the  penitent  of  the  divine 
mercy.  .  .  .  What  can  never  be  done  by  learning  or 
by  ritual  shall  be  accomplished  before  our  eyes,  when 
the  voice  of  the  Gospel  is  once  more  heard  in  its 
clearness  and  fullness.  .  .  .  We  are  in  the  valley  now 
where  the  shadows  lie  heavy;  but  already  the  east  is 
reddening,  and  we  shall  live  to  see  the  feet  of  God's 
messengers,  beautiful  upon  the  mountains,  because 
they  are  bringing  good  tidings  of  good,  because  they 
are  publishing  Salvation.'' 

If  we  think  of  the  modern  American  pulpit  as  a 
whole,  it  does  not  seem  to  have  an  overmastering  and 
compelling  sense  of  message. 

It  may  be  that  it  is  too  hurried  for  that,  that  it  does 
not  follow  the  Apostle's  injunction  *'  to  think  on  these 
things,"  until  in  quietness  and  concentration  of  mind 
it  gains  that  clearness  and  fullness  of  vision  that  is  the 
source  of  all  profound  conviction  and  all  moving  feel- 
ing. 

And  it  is  due  also,  I  think,  far  more  to  the  natural 
and  special  influences  of  speech  in  a  Republic.  Speech 
here  as  in  the  ancient  Republic  of  Greece  has  had  an 
undue  importance  in  public  matters.  We  are  known 
as  a  nation  of  ready  talkers.  There  are  men  of  uni- 
versal and  superficial  knowledge  who  are  willing  to 
talk  at  a  moment's  notice  on  every  conceivable  sub- 
ject. And  people  are  unduly  influenced  by  fluent 
speech  and  persuasive  manner.  Religious  life  is  vi- 
tally affected  by  its  environment,  breathing  its  atmos- 
phere, adopting  its  methods  and  using  its  forces.  The 
development  of  our  Christianity  has  been  largely  by 
mass  movements,  through  the  power  of  popular  speech 
and  not  so  much  by  careful  religious  education  and 


240  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

the  forming  of  the  habits  of  the  religious  Hfe.  The 
pulpit  of  many  of  our  churches  has  been  wide  open 
to  any  one  who  had  an  earnest  purpose  and  a  ready 
tongue.  This  has  emphasized  speech  more  than 
thought,  the  man  more  than  the  reaHty  of  the  mes- 
sage. 

Then  there  has  been  no  general  recognition  here  of 
the  essential  catholic  truth,  the  message  of  Christian- 
ity. We  are  a  polyglot  of  races  and  tongues  and 
churches.  We  have  been  the  very  Paradise  of  Sec- 
tarianism—  the  one  hundred  sixty-five  different  de- 
nominations often  the  expression  of  an  excessive  and 
eccentric  individualism.  So  men  have  been  tempted 
to  preach  an  ism  as  the  form  of  the  Gospel,  and  to 
dwell  upon  differences  rather  than  the  unity  of  the 
Faith.  Through  this  influence  the  preacher  has  had 
more  of  a  personal  following  —  the  very  body  of  be- 
lievers has  been  called  Mr.  So-and-So's  church  —  and 
the  personal  gifts  have  been  exalted  at  the  expense 
of  the  message. 

We  have  many  hopeful  signs  of  the  lessening  of  this 
divisive  individualism,  in  breaking  down  the  walls  of 
separation,  in  the  growing  unity  of  conception  and 
spirit  in  the  life  of  the  American  pulpit. 

But  I  think  a  critical  comparison  of  the  American 
pulpit  with  the  English  and  Scotch  will  convict  us 
of  less  reliance  upon  the  thorough  grasp  of  the  truth 
and  more  trust  in  brightness  of  speech  and  attractive- 
ness of  person.  In  England  and  Scotland  fluency  is 
apt  to  be  discounted  as  the  mark  of  the  superficial. 
The  people  will  listen  if  a  man  has  something  to  say. 
They  are  not  so  easily  swept  away  by  popular  gifts. 
They  want  first  sincerity  of  life  and  reality  of  mes- 
sage. 


THE  PRESENT  AMERICAN  PULPIT  241 

However  any  wide  reading  of  the  American  pulpit 
will  bring  the  spirit  of  joy  and  gratitude  that  God  is 
speaking  through  so  many  noble  men.  But  it  will 
also  admonish  us  that  we  must  do  everything  in  our 
power  to  cultivate  a  more  thoughtful  and  spiritual  life, 
that  we  must  have  a  keener  sense  of  the  sacredness 
of  speech,  that  we  must  exalt  the  essential  things 
of  faith,  and  we  must  remember  that  our  message  is 
not  essentially  an  ethic  or  a  philosophy  but  a  redemp- 
tion. 

A  professor  of  a  great  university  said  to  the  writer 
that  he  had  heard  the  University  Sermons  for  a  year, 
and  few  distinctive  Christian  notes.  That  recalls 
Blackstone's  remark  of  the  eighteenth  century  pulpit 
of  London,  *'  No  more  Gospel  than  the  essays  of 
Cicero."  One  questions  the  truth  of  the  criticism  but 
it  reveals  a  tendency. 

Old  forms  of  Christian  truth  have  passed  away  and 
men  have  not  thought  through  far  enough  to  clothe 
the  truth  in  new  forms.  In  doctrinal  uncertainty, 
like  sincere  men,  they  turn  to  what  they  do  know  and 
declare  the  ethical  truths  and  practical  duties  of  life. 
Religion  is  real  and  the  source  of  all  true  life,  but  a 
certain  vagueness  and  elusiveness  lies  over  its  facts 
like  the  veil  of  mist  over  an  autumn  landscape.  Some 
have  lost  the  evangelistic  purpose,  the  passion  for 
souls,  the  urgency  of  appeal. 

We  do  not  understand  the  Gospel  or  the  human 
heart  if  we  ignore  sin  and  the  redemptive  power  of 
Christ. 

The  crucible  of  war  has  brought  out  some  neglected 
truths.  It  tells  us  that  we  need  a  **  Gospel  that  will 
deal  with  the  evil  bias  and  spiritual  impotence  of  the 
human  heart,  and  by  its  assurance  of  a  forgiveness  in 


242  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Christ  and  a  proclamation  of  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  meet  the  need  of  a  sinful  man.  ...  It  is  not 
too  much  to  hope  that  the  soft  and  easy  message  of  the 
past  years  will  cease  to  be  heard  and  the  message  of 
redemption  for  sinful  man  become  the  evangel  of  the 
years  to  come."  So  writes  a  Scotch  preacher  from 
the  realities  uncovered  by  God's  hot  plowshares. 

The  Gospel  means  the  growth  and  enrichment  and 
perfection  of  the  soul  and  a  redeemed  society  of  men. 
But  its  initial  is  the  relation  of  the  individual  life  to 
God  through  Jesus  Christ.  The  Gospel  is  the  most 
effective  ethic,  but  it  must  be  a  redemption  or  it  can 
have  no  expulsive  and  transforming  power  in  human 
life.     This  is  the  great  message  for  the  modern  pulpit. 


XI 

THE   PULPIT   AND   SOCIAL   WELFARE 

I  wish  first  to  show  in  brief  outline  the  historic  re- 
lation of  the  American  pulpit  to  the  interests  of  so- 
ciety: then  to  analyze  the  social  life  and  needs  of 
our  time,  finding  that  new  occasions  teach  new  duties ; 
and  finally  out  of  the  history  of  the  American  pulpit 
and  the  demands  of  the  present,  asking  what  is  the 
true  attitude  of  the  pulpit  towards  the  problems  of 
society. 

The  Church  and  the  Staite  were  one  in  early  New 
England.  The  Puritans  came  hither  not  so  much  for 
freedom  of  worship  as  to  establish  on  these  shores 
a  Theocracy,  in  which  society  should  be  founded  on 
the  Bible  and  all  its  laws  made  and  interpreted  by  the 
Gospel.  In  such  a  conception  the  Church  was  the 
State  and  her  ministers  exercised  the  controlling  in- 
fluence. 

**  In  the  little  Theocracy  which  the  Pilgrims  estab- 
lished in  the  Wilderness,  the  ministry  was  the  only 
order  of  nobility.  They  were  the  only  privileged 
class,  and  their  voice  it  was  that  decided  ex  cathedra 
on  all  questions  both  in  Church  and  State,  from  the 
choice  of  a  Governor  to  that  of  the  district  school 
teacher." 

Town  meetings  were  often  called  in  connection  with 
the  mid-week  lectures,  the  civil  notices  were  read  be- 
fore the  sermon  on  Sabbath  morning,  or  posted  on  the 

243 


244  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

corner  of  the  meeting-house.  Only  members  of  the 
Church  had  the  rights  of  citizenship  and  the  Church 
was  supported  as  the  State  by  public  taxation.  So 
questions  of  society  were  felt  to  be  religious;  and 
while  theology  strictly  so  called  was  the  substance 
of  the  preaching,  social  questions  were  freely  dis- 
cussed in  the  pulpit  without  any  thought  of  the  danger 
of  secularizing  it.  There  was  no  divorce  even  in 
thought  between  the  sacred  and  the  secular.  All  was 
sacred:  it  was  done  unto  the  Lord. 

The  political  action  and  teaching  of  that  early  pul- 
pit stands  out  even  more  distinctly  than  its  spiritual. 
Nathaniel  Ward  preached  a  notable  sermon  in  1641 
on  **  The  Body  of  Liberties.''  As  early  as  1643  John 
Cotton  began  to  preach  election  sermons  to  the  depu- 
ties. Increase  Mather  was  the  chief  agent  in  securing 
the  new  charter  of  Massachusetts  in  1688. 

The  theocratic  idea  of  the  Puritans  began  to  break 
down  under  their  persecution  of  the  Quakers.  A 
theocracy  implies  uniformity  of  religion,  all  members 
of  the  same  church.  Grant  the  presence  of  non-con- 
formists and  the  sense  of  injustice  at  once  begins  to 
work.  When  the  numbers  of  non-church  members 
and  so  of  disfranchised  citizen  grows  to  be  four- 
fifths  of  the  whole  —  as  in  New  England  before  the 
end  of  the  century  —  and  you  have  the  prophecy  of 
the  downfall  of  the  theocratic  idea.  With  the  intro- 
duction of  another  church,  as  King's  Chapel,  Boston, 
and  the  growth  here  of  the  Old  World  divisions  of 
the  Church,  civil  justice  demands  the  separation  of 
the  Church  and  State.  But  before  the  "  Emancipa- 
tion of  Mass,"  other  colonies  were  developing  distinct 
types  of  religious  life,  the  Baptists  in  Rhode  Island, 
the  Reformed  Church  in  New  York,  the  Quakers  and 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        245 

Moravians  in  Pennsylvania,  the  Catholics'  in  Mary- 
land, the  Episcopal  Church  in  Virginia.  All  this 
looked  for  the  separation  of  Church  and  State  before 
there  could  be  the  Union  of  Colonies  in  a  national 
life.  But  with  the  gradual  lessening  of  the  theocratic 
idea,  the  pulpit  did  not  lose  its  interest  and  influence 
in  social  life.  It  did  not  seek  so  much  personally  to 
direct,  as  to  furnish  moral  and  spiritual  ideals  and 
leaders. 

Think  of  the  notable  influence  of  Theodore  Hooker 
in  the  early  life  of  Connecticut.  Whole  churches  and 
their  ministers  had  emigrated  from  the  Massachusetts 
Colony  to  the  Connecticut  River  Valley  not  only  on 
account  of  more  room  for  growth,  but  out  of  desire 
for  a  freer  atmosphere  than  the  Massachusetts  the- 
ocracy. 

"  At  the  opening  sessions  of  the  General  Court,  May 
31,  1638,  at  Hartford  (the  beginning  of  Connecticut) 
Mr.  Hooker  preached  a  sermon  of  wonderful  power, 
in  which  he  maintained  that  the  foundation  of  au- 
thority is  laid  in  the  free  consent  of  the  people,  that 
the  choice  of  public  magistrates  l)elongs  unto  the  peo- 
ple by  God's  own  allowance,  and  that  they  who  have 
power  to  appoint  officers  and  magistrates  have  the 
right  also  to  set  the  bounds  and  limitations  of  the 
power  and  place  unto  which  they  call  them.  On  the 
fourteenth  of  January,  1639,  all  the  freemen  of  the 
three  towns  assembled  at  Hartford  and  adopted  a 
written  constitution  in  which  the  hand  of  the  great 
preacher  is  clearly  discernible.  It  does  not  prescribe 
any  condition  of  church  membership  for  the  right  of 
suffrage.  It  was  the  first  written  Constitution  known 
to  history  that  created  a  Government,  and  it  marked 
the   beginnings    of    American    democracy,    of    which 


246  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Thomas  Hooker  deserves  more  than  any  other  man 
to  be  called  the  father.  The  Government  of  the 
United  States  to-day  is  in  lineal  descent  more  nearly 
related  to  that  of  Connecticut  than  to  that  of  any  of 
the  other  thirteen  colonies."  ^ 

Earlier  in  the  same  volume  Mr.  Fiske  pays  a  noble 
tribute  to  the  influence  of  Calvinism  on  civil  liberty, 
in  removing  all  distinctions  of  rank  and  fortune  in 
the  presence  of  the  Sovereign  God.  **  It  was  a  reli- 
gion fit  to  inspire  men  who  were  to  be  called  upon  to 
fight  for  freedom,  whether  in  the  marshes  of  the  Neth- 
erlands or  on  the  moors  of  Scotland.  In  a  church, 
moreover,  based  upon  such  a  theology,  there  was  no 
room  for  prelacy.  Each  single  church  tended  to  be- 
come an  independent  congregation  of  worshipers,  con- 
tributing one  of  the  most  eflfective  schools  that  has 
ever  existed  for  training  men  in  local  self-govern- 
ment"  (p.  58).  And  Mr.  Byington  in  '*  The  Puritan 
in  England  and  New  England,"  thus  summarizes  the 
molding  power  of  the  colonial  pulpit  upon  the  State: 
**  Their  theological  views  tended  to  make  them  the 
defenders  of  liberty.  They  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  Republic.  Their  churches  were  democratic.  So 
were  their  towns.  So  were  the  Colonies,  as  far  as 
the  people  were  permitted  to  frame  their  Government. 
And  when  George  III,  far  on  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, attempted  to  deprive  the  English  colonists  of 
their  rights  as  Englishmen,  the  descendants  of  these 
Calvinistic  Puritans  took  the  lead  in  the  Revolution 
which  made  us  a  free  nation." 

We  must  not  forget  the  arrest  of  Francis  Makemie 
for  free  preaching  in  New  York,  and  his  successful 

1  Fiske,  "  Beginnings  of  New  England,"  p.  127. 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        247 

defense  of  free  speech  that  gave  religious  liberty  to 
the  Presbyterian  Church  throughout  the  Colonies,  and 
marks  an  era  in  the  growth  of  free  ideas  in  America. 

But  the  chief  honor  is  due  to  Roger  Williams  and 
his  successors  in  the  Baptist  ministry  for  their  war- 
fare against  the  **  privileges  of  the  powerful  standing 
order  of  New  England  and  of  the  moribund  establish- 
ments of  the  South,"  and  their  victory  for  liberty  of 
conscience  and  worship  and  equality  before  the  law 
for  all  alike. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  we  had  never  been  a  nation 
without  the  teachings  of  the  American  pulpit.  There 
had  been  no  Revolution  save  for  the  influence  of  the 
clergy.  It  is  true  that  but  one,  Witherspoon,  was  a 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  a  mul- 
titude were  felt  in  that  instrument  and  in  the  heroic 
struggle  that  gave  meaning  and  efficiency  to  the  words. 
Upon  June  i,  1774,  the  Boston  Post  Bill  was  to  go 
into  effect.  It  was  a  solemn  day  throughout  New 
England  kept  by  fasting  and  prayers.  Public  fast  days 
were  held  in  different  Colonies  that  summer,  with  pub- 
lic teaching  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  peo- 
ple. When  General  Gage,  the  royalist  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  refused  to  call  such  a  day,  saying  **  the 
request  was  only  to  give  opportunity  for  sedition  to 
flow  from  the  pulpit,"  the  associated  ministers  of  Bos- 
ton agreed  upon  a  day,  and  this  action  was  spread 
abroad  and  the  day  kept  throughout  New  England, 
even  in  the  far-distant  settlements  of  Maine.  Could 
General  Gage,  have  heard  the  sermons,  whose  titles 
have  come  down  to  us,  he  would  certainly  have  been 
confirmed  in  his  suspicions :  **  The  duty  of  a  people 
under  the  oppression  of  man,"  **  Despotism  illustrated 
and    impressed    from   the   character   of    Rehoboam," 


248  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

"  The  misery  and  duty  of  an  oppressed  and  enslaved 
people." 

The  autumn  thanksgiving  was  another  day  of  pa- 
triotic sermons.  That  of  William  Gordon  of  Rox- 
bury,  afterwards  delivered  as  the  Boston  lecture,  did 
much  by  its  bold  utterance  to  increase  the  spirit  of 
resistance.  **  The  way  to  escape  an  attack  is  to  be  in 
readiness  to  receive  it.  While  administration  consists 
of  those  that  have  avowed  their  dislike  to  the  princi- 
ples of  this  continent,  and  the  known  friends  of  Amer- 
ica are  excluded,  there  should  be  no  dependence  upon 
the  fair  speeches  or  actual  promises  of  any,  but  the 
colonies  should  pursue  the  means  of  safety  as  vigor- 
ously as  ever,  that  they  may  not  be  surprised.''  The 
man  was  called  *'  a  reverend  politician,'*  a  '*  Christian 
sower  of  sedition  "  and  other  terms  of  opprobrium,  al- 
ways easily  used  by  those  who  would  cover  their  own 
unrighteousness  by  assumed  zeal  for  the  purity  of 
religion. 

When  the  minute  men  of  Concord  and  Lexington 
were  making  the  first  open  stand  for  liberty  April  19, 
1775,  the  people  of  Connecticut  were  just  as  earnestly 
engaged,  everywhere  in  their  churches  **  supplicating 
Almighty  God  in  fasting  and  prayer  for  a  blessing 
upon  their  endeavors  to  preserve  their  liberties."  '*  It 
was  thus  given  to  some  to  fight,  and  to  others  to  pray. 
The  ministers  were  firing  the  people's  hearts  with 
courage,  and  unwittingly  preparing  the  men  of  war 
to  march  before  many  hours  at  the  Lexington  alarm." 

More  than  one  minister  proclaimed  the  duty  of 
the  hour,  and  throwing  aside  his  gown,  stood  before 
his  people  in  the  uniform  of  a  Continental  and  him- 
self led  the  men  of  his  congregation  to  the  field. 
More  than  one  sword  flashed  as  the  sword  of  the  Lord. 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        249 

And  through  the  long  years  of  struggle  and  sacrifice, 
it  was  the  constant  teaching  of  the  Christian  pulpit 
and  the  ceaseless  prayers  of  Christian  homes, 

That  made  those  heroes  dare 

To  die,  or  leave  their  children  free. 

And  after  the  war,  during  the  trying  times  of  na- 
tional construction,  when  the  interests  and  opinions  of 
the  Colonies  seemed  so  diverse,  the  pulpit  with  its  spir- 
itual vision  of  opportunity,  however  imperfect  the  vi- 
sion, worked  powerfully  with  men  like  Hamilton  and 
Madison  in  teaching  the  necessity  of  a  strong  union 
and  binding  the  States  together  in  a  genuine  national 
Hfe.  Men  differed  in  the  pulpit  as  elsewhere,  but  as 
a  class  the  ministry  felt  the  divine  meaning  of  na- 
tionality and  worked  for  the  adoption  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  1787,  and  for  the  development  of  an  orderly 
and  united  life. 

The  next  ten  years  illustrate  the  danger  as  well  as 
the  necessity  of  a  religion  applied  to  the  whole  life  of 
man.  The  war  of  parties  succeeded  the  war  of  Inde- 
pendence. The  Federalists  stood  for  a  strong  central 
Government  with  sympathies  that  attached  them  by 
tradition  and  principle  with  the  Mother  Country.  The 
Democrats  emphasized  the  doctrine  of  individualism 
in  regard  to  person  and  State  and  drew  much  of  their 
inspiration  from  the  doctrines  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Political  doctrines  were  badly  mixed  and  con- 
fused with  questions  of  religion.  French  influence 
had  been  strong  in  our  war  and  it  was  natural  that 
the  vices  of  French  life,  gayety,  self-indulgence  and 
unbelief,  should  have  their  followers  in  American  life. 
It  was  the  natural  sequence  of  the  excitements  of  war, 
the  natural  attendant  of  the  hazards  of  a  new  world. 


250  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Infidel  tracts  were  sown  broadcast.  Christian  people 
were  alarmed.  Parties  made  capital  of  the  excited 
condition  without  discrimination  or  principle  just  as 
they  are  doing  now  with  Americanism  and  the  League 
of  Peace.  Democrat  and  Jacobin  and  Infidel  were  to 
some  minds  the  same  dreaded  specter  as  in  our  day 
there  is  by  some  the  thoughtless  confusion  of  anar- 
chist, socialist  and  infidel.  Fast  days  and  Thanks- 
giving days  were  turned  into  party  discussions.  In  a 
proclamation  for  a  national  fast  President  John  Adams 
declared  "  the  most  precious  interests  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  still  held  in  jeopardy  by  the 
hostile  designs  and  insidious  arts  of  a  foreign  nation, 
as  well  as  by  the  dissemination  among  them  of  those 
principles  subversive  of  the  foundations  of  all  reli- 
gious, moral  and  social  obligations."  Every  political 
preacher  put  this  in  his  bow.  No  wonder  that  the 
ministers  thought  the  very  foundations  were  being  de- 
stroyed when  the  ideas  of  Tom  Paine  were  filling 
the  minds  of  young  men.  And  they  set  themselves  to 
resist  and  overcome  French  influence.  Had  they  been 
clear  from  partisan  politics  no  harm  could  result. 
But  no  line  could  be  clearly  drawn  between  religion 
and  irreligion.  And  the  partisan  arguments  of  the 
pulpit  repelled  many  hearers,  who  became  the  easy 
spoil  of  infidelity.  **  How  much,  think  you,  has  reli- 
gion been  benefited  by  sermons,  intended  to  show  that 
Satan  and  Cain  were  Jacobins?  How  much  by  ser- 
mons in  which  every  deistical  argument  has  been  pre- 
sented with  its  greatest  force  as  being  a  part  of  the 
Republican  creed?  Is  this,  men  of  God,  following  the 
precept,  Feed  my  sheep,  feed  my  lambs  ?  " 

*' The  agitations  of  this  decade  in  the  churches  of 
New  England  did  much  to  dethrone  the  royal  influ- 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        251 

ence  of  the  one  church  which  in  many  towns  had 
hitherto  united  the  people  in  their  worship.  The  reli- 
gious influence  of  the  minister  was  greatly  lessened  in 
the  end.  He  had  pleased  some  of  his  own  opinion  for 
the  time,  but  he  had  lost  something  of  his  preeminence 
and  authority  as  the  spiritual  patriarch  of  the  com- 
munity." 

The  share  which  the  pulpit  took  in  forming  our  na- 
tional life  has  been  kept  in  the  work  of  purifying  and 
developing  our  society.  Men  have  been  brave  and 
loving  in  applying  the  law  of  Christ  to  our  socia^l 
relations. 

A  false  code  of  honor,  almost  unknown  in  the 
North,  but  developed  in  the  South  as  more  directly 
the  heir  of  aristocratic  institutions,  after  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  came  to  be  a  common  mode  of  settling 
personal  differences.  The  duel  was  the  reign  of  pas- 
sion and  force  over  law  and  society.  It  was  not  until 
the  nation  had  been  shocked  by  the  death  of  the  most 
gifted  man  of  public  Hfe,  Alexander  Hamilton,  that 
effective  voices  were  raised  against  this  vestige  of 
barbarism.  It  remained  for  a  young  minister  of  East 
Hampton,  Long  Island,  to  preach  a  sermon  that  roused 
the  conscience  of  the  nation.  "  The  blood  streams,  and 
the  victim  welters  on  the  ground.  And  see  the  victor 
coward  running  from  the  field,  and,  for  a  few  days, 
like  Cain  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond,  until  the  first  burst 
of  indignation  has  passed,  and  the  hand  of  time  has 
soothed  the  outraged  sensibility  of  the  community; 
then  publicly,  and,  as  if  to  add  insult  to  injustice,  re- 
turning to  offer  his  services  and  to  pledge  his  honor 
that  your  lives  and  your  rights  shall  be  safe  in  his 
hands."  The  sermon  of  President  Nott  of  Union  Col- 
lege may  have   received  more  praise  and  became   a 


252  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

classic  of  the  pulpit,  but  the  sermon  of  young  Lyman 
Beecher  was  God's  blow  against  the  wrong.  **  An 
impession  was  made  that  never  ceased.  It  started  a 
series  of  efforts  that  have  affected  the  whole  northern 
mind  at  least."  "  That  sermon  has  never  ceased  to 
be  a  power  in  the  politics  of  this  country/*  wrote 
Leonard  Bacon  fifty  years  after.  **  More  than  any- 
thing else,  it  made  the  name  of  brave  old  Andrew 
Jackson  distasteful  to  the  moral  and  religious  feeling 
of  the  people.  It  hung  like  a  millstone  on  the  neck 
of  Henry  Clay." 

The  same  brave  and  loyal  minister  began  the  per- 
sistent and  systematic  efforts  to  check  the  evils  of  the 
drinking  habits  of  modern  society.  Dr.  Rush,  an 
eminent  physician,  had  published  in  1804  his  ''  Inquiry 
into  the  effects  of  Ardent  Spirits  upon  the  Human 
Mind  and  Body,"  the  first  note  of  the  temperance 
reformation.  But  Lyman  Beecher  did  not  speak  un- 
til 1812.  Then  it  was  the  amount  of  drinking  at  ordi- 
nations, '*  sideboards  smelling  like  the  bar  of  a  very 
active  grog-shop  "  that  awoke  him  to  the  war  with 
alarm  and  shame  and  indignation.  He  was  the  chair- 
man of  the  committee  that  brought  in  the  first  report 
of  the  General  Association  against  the  evil.  The  pre- 
amble speaks  of  the  *'  undue  consumption  of  ardent 
spirits,  the  enormous  sacrifice  of  property  resulting, 
the  alarming  increase  of  intemperance,  the  deadly  ef- 
fect on  health,  the  family,  society,  civil  and  religious 
institutions,  and  especially  in  nullifying  the  means  of 
grace  and  destroying  souls." 

The  first  recommendation  was  that  all  the  ministers 
of  the  Association  preach  on  the  subject;  the  second 
that  all  abstain  from  the  use  of  ardent  spirits  at  ec- 
clesiastical meetings.     The  Massachusetts  Temperance 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        253 

Society,  the  oldest  meriting  the  name,  was  formed  the 
year  after,  18 13.  In  the  same  year  the  Rev.  Heman 
Humphrey  of  Fairfield,  Connecticut,  afterwards  Pres- 
ident of  Amherst,  began  publishing  a  series  of  articles 
on  the  subject,  and  Rev.  Justin  Edwards  of  Andover 
began  preaching  on  it  in  18 14.  These  are  the  pioneer 
temperance  reformers,  and  the  American  pulpit  has 
never  since  lacked  a  succession  of  fearless  and  effective 
preachers  of  this  truth  of  social  welfare.  Lyman 
Beecher's  six  sermons  on  Intemperance  given  a  little 
later  were  widely  blessed  to  the  reformation  of  men 
and  the  banishing  of  the  cup  from  many  circles.  No- 
where have  the  evils  of  intemperance  been  made  to  pass 
before  the  eyes  of  men  in  more  horrid  array  or  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel  applied  in  more  pungent  way  to 
present  sin. 

The  American  pulpit  at  least  in  the  first  years  of 
our  national  life  was  no  less  faithful  as  to  the  sin  of 
negro  slavery.  As  early  as  1675  John  Eliot,  from  the 
midst  of  his  work  among  the  Indians,  **  warned  the 
Government  against  the  sale  of  Indians  taken  in  war, 
on  the  ground  that  the  selling  of  souls  is  dangerous 
merchandise,  and  with  a  bleeding  and  burning  passion 
remonstrated  against  the  abject  condition  of  the  en- 
slaved Africans."  '*  Cotton  Mather  in  his  *  Essays 
to  do  good '  spoke  of  the  injustice  of  slavery  in  such 
terms  that  his  little  book  had  to  be  expurgated  by  the 
American  Tract  Society  to  accommodate  it  to  the  de- 
generate conscience  of  a  later  day."  The  Mennonites 
of  Germantpwn  in  1688  urged  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  quaint  and  touching  language.  Every  yearly  meet- 
ing of  Quakers  uttered  a  unanimous  protest.  Even 
at  the  South  the  pulpit  was  not  silent.  The  Meth- 
odists with  their  great  strength  there  waged  a  spiritual 


254  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

warfare  against  the  wrong.  The  southern  Baptists 
in  1789  Resolved  "  That  slavery  is  a  violent  depriva- 
tion of  the  rights  of  nature,  and  inconsistent  with  a 
Republican  Governmeut,  and  we  therefore  recom- 
mend it  to  our  brethren  to  make  use  of  every  legal 
measure  to  extirpate  this  horrid  evil  from  the  land/' 
At  the  North  Edwards  the  younger  is  notable  in  the 
unbroken  succession  of  anti-slavery  ministers.  His 
sermon  on  the  **  Injustice  and  Impolicy  of  the  Slave 
Trade  '*  preached  before  the  Connecticut  Abolition 
Society  in  1791  was  printed  for  many  years  as  the 
strongest  argument  against  the  whole  system  of  slav- 
ery. Albert  Barnes  of  our  own  church  was  outspoken 
against  slavery,  using  the  most  masterly  Biblical  argu- 
ments, and  in  a  way  to  reach  the  ear  of  the  South. 
"  His  book  on  American  slavery,"  says  Austin  Phelps, 
"  was  a  thesaurus  to  the  Abolitionists  for  many  years. 
...  He  preached  the  substance  of  his  book  to  his 
people  at  a  time  when  millions  of  property  sat  along 
the  aisles  of  his  church,  coined  out  of  a  slave-labor  on 
cotton  and  rice  plantations.  He  did  it  with  the  air 
of  one  who  did  not  for  a  moment  conceive  it  possible 
to  do  anything  else.  His  more  timid  friends  trembled 
for  the  result,  but  not  he." 

Charles  G.  Finney,  Lyman  Beecher,  William  Leon- 
ard Bacon,  Joseph  P.  Thompson,  Richard  S.  Storrs 
have  made  noble  pleas  for  the  brotherhood  of  man. 
Horace  Bushnell  did  not  fear  to  preach  politics  in 
the  pulpit.  Men  were  measuring  duty  by  apparent 
consequence  and  so  fearing  to  say  a  word  for  the 
slave.  But  Bushnell  maintained  that  righteousness 
secured  the  only  consequences  worth  having.  *'  The 
principle  he  made  underlay  the  anti-slavery  movement, 
the  resistance  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  the  outcry 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE         255 

of  the  North  against  Webster's  Seventh  of  March 
speech,  and  entered  into  the  thought  that  issued  in  the 
Free  Soil  party."  The  fertile  imagination,  the  quick 
sympathies,  the  passionate  earnestness  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  were  all  enlisted  for  the  freedom  of  the  slave. 

But  in  spite  of  fearless  teaching  slavery  grew.  It 
grew  profitable  and  so  strengthened  by  commercial 
interests  its  political  policy.  Gold  covered  the  eye  and 
closed  the  lips.  It  turned  even  good  men  into  apol- 
ogists. It  created  the  convenient  doctrine  that  it  was 
sacrilege  to  speak  of  slavery  in  the  pulpit.  Too  many 
pulpits  were  silent,  and  too  many  churches  partakers 
of  the  guilt.  The  violent  speech  of  a  few  radical 
Abolitionists,  the  joining  of  obnoxious  doctrines  of 
free  religion  with  anti-slavery  made  timid  men  cow- 
ards. There  were  conservative  men  who  regarded  all 
agitation  as  an  irreverent  forcing  of  Providence. 
When  an  earnest  Christian  lawyer  at  the  time  of  John 
Brown's  death  offered  resolutions  at  prayer  meeting 
in  the  first  church  against  slavery  and  praying  for  its 
speeding  removal,  a  Professor  of  the  Seminary  op- 
posed the  resolution  in  a  speech  in  which  he  said  that 
he  had  preached  the  Gospel  for  forty  years  and  had 
found  no  need  of  bringing  politics  into  the  pulpit. 

While  there  were  extremists  on  both  sides,  men  who 
denounced  the  Church  as  in  league  with  Satan  and 
her  ministers  hirelings  because  they  did  not  preach 
the  duty  of  immediate  emancipation,  and  men  like 
President  Lord  of  Dartmouth  who  wrote  in  defense 
of  slavery  as  a  divine  institution,  many  pulpits  were 
outspoken,  speaking  the  truth  in  love.  Such  men  as 
Channing  and  Beecher,  great  lovers  of  humanity, 
prophets  of  justice  and  brotherhood,  gave  strength  to 
the  ethical  principles  of  the  Gospel,  trained  the  con- 


256  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

science  of  the  nation  to  carry  it  through  perilous  years 
and  the  catastrophe  of  civil  war.  The  closing  words 
of  one  of  Channing's  addresses  well  represent  the 
thought  and  spirit  of  the  best  pulpit  as  to  the  national 
sin. 

**  What  is  the  duty  of  the  North  in  regard  to  slav- 
ery? I  recommend  no  crusade  against  slavery,  no 
use  of  physical  or  legislative  power  for  its  destruction, 
no  irruption  into  the  South  to  tamper  with  the  slave 
or  to  repeal  or  resist  the  laws.  Our  duties  on  this 
subject  are  plain.  We  must  first  free  ourselves  from 
all  constitutional  or  legal  obligations  to  uphold  slavery. 
Then  we  must  give  free  and  strong  expression  to  our 
reprobation  of  slavery.  The  North  has  but  one 
weapon  —  moral  force,  the  utterance  of  moral  judg- 
ment, moral  feeling  and  religious  conviction.  I  do 
not  say  that  this  alone  is  to  subvert  slavery.  Provi- 
dence never  accomplishes  its  end  by  a  single  instru- 
ment. All  social  changes  come  from  mixed  motives, 
from  various  impulses,  and  slavery  is  to  fall  through 
various  causes.  But  among  these  a  high  place  will 
belong  to  the  general  conviction  of  its  evils  and  wrongs. 
Opinion  is  stronger  than  kings,  mobs,  lynch  laws,  or 
any  other  laws  for  repressing  thought  and  speech.  .  .  . 

**  I  have  turned  aside  to  speak  of  the  great  stain  upon 
our  country  which  makes  us  the  by-word  and  scorn 
of  the  nations;  but  I  do  not  despair.  Mighty  powers 
are  at  work  in  the  world.  Who  can  stay  them? 
God's  word  has  gone  forth  and  it  cannot  return  to 
Him  void.  A  new  comprehension  of  the  Christian 
Spirit,  a  new  reverence  for  humanity,  a  new  feeling 
of  brotherhood,  and  of  all  men's  relations  to  the  com- 
mon Father  —  this  is  among  the  signs  of  our  times. 
We  see  it :  do  we  not  feel  it  ?    Before  this  all  oppres- 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        257 

sions  are  to  falL  Society,  silently  pervaded  by  this, 
is  to  change  its  aspect  of  universal  warfare  for  peace. 
The  power  of  selfishness,  all-grasping  and  seemingly 
invincible,  is  to  yield  to  this  diviner  energy.  The 
Song  of  Angels  *  on  earth  peace,'  will  not  always 
sound  as  fiction.  O  Come  Thou  Kingdom  of  heaven, 
for  which  we  daily  pray !  " 

The  prayer  was  to  be  answered  but  not  in  the  way 
of  the  asker.  There  had  to  be  first  a  **  fiery  Gospel, 
writ  in  burnished  rows  of  steel."  And  when  the  trum- 
pet sounded,  and  the  hearts  of  men  were  sifted,  a 
million  men  were  found  ready  to  die  to  make  men  free, 
because  Christ  had  died  to  make  men  holy.  It  is  use- 
less to  say  that  there  might  have  been  a  more  peaceful 
way  if  intemperate  speech  had  been  checked,  and  zeal 
never  flamed  into  fanaticism.  The  stain  was  too  deep, 
the  wrong  was  too  thoroughly  ingrained  in  nature  and 
institutions  and  selfish  interests  to  take  any  but  the 
costly  way.  And  the  nation  was  ready  for  the  fiery 
trial  because  men  in  Christian  pulpits  like  Mr.  Beecher 
had  applied  Christianity  to  all  the  great  ethical  con- 
cerns of  business  and  society. 

"  The  moment  a  man  so  conducts  his  profession 
that  it  touches  the  question  of  right  and  wrong,  he 
comes  into  my  sphere.  There  I  stand;  and  I  put 
God's  measure,  the  golden  reed  of  the  Sanctuary,  on 
him  and  his  course;  and  I  am  his  master,  if  I  be  a 
true  seer  and  a  true  moral  teacher." 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  practical  question :  What 
shall  be  our  attitude  to  the  social  questions  of  our  own 
day  ?  There  are  many  who  feel  that  they  are  the  most 
difficult  and  vital  problems  with  which  Christianity 
has  ever  had  to  deal. 


258  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Christianity  is  a  practical  religion.  It  makes  its 
appeal  to  life  and  is  tested  by  its  practical  effects  in 
the  individual  and  in  society.  There  is  an  ethical  side 
to  every  Gospel  truth.  It  has  been  said  that  Chris- 
tianity unlike  other  religions  and  systems  of  ethics 
needs  God  and  at  least  two  men.  The  relation  of  these 
two  men  makes  society.  The  relation  to  God  is  ex- 
pressed and  realized  in  the  relation  of  brothers.  Only 
by  being  a  brother  can  a  man  know  himself  as  a  son 
of  God.  "  He  who  says  he  loves  God,  and  hates  his 
brother  is  a  liar." 

Christ  taught  and  established  a  present  Kingdom  of 
God.  Its  motive  is  a  filial  spirit:  its  sphere  is  human 
life:  its  goal  is  to  make  the  will  of  God  done  on  earth 
as  in  heaven. 

**  A  fellowship  of  Christ  —  like  love  which  is  to  in- 
clude every  soul  that  is  willing  to  enter !  A  community 
which  embraces  every  other  true  community  of  men, 
which  contains  and  controls  the  home,  the  State,  the 
economic  system,  the  fellowships  of  science,  letters, 
art." 

The  neglect  of  Christian  ethics  by  the  pulpit,  the 
failure  to  preach  applied  Christianity  is  seen  in  making 
the  Christian  life  an  intellectual  assent  or  an  emotional 
response  and  not  the  whole  of  character. 

In  the  undue  emphasis  of  the  Godward  side,  the 
manward  side  has  been  like  a  neglected  garden  rank 
with  noisome  weeds.  Heresy  in  the  New  Testament 
is  connected  with  conduct  and  not  solely  with  intel- 
lectual conceptions.  The  most  deadly  heresies  of  life 
have  grown  up  under  the  strictest  preaching  of  so- 
called  Gospel  truths.  Men  may  be  sticklers  for  creed 
and  careless  of  lives.  The  seventeenth  century,  called 
the  cruel  century,  was  also  noted  for  its  theological 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE         259 

conflicts.  And  when  men  complain  of  the  ethical 
teaching  of  the  pulpit,  and  say  — **  We  don't  want 
politics  —  we  want  the  pure  Gospel  " —  it  may  be  be- 
cause conscience  is  restless  under  it,  bringing  unpleas- 
antly to  mind  transactions  and  relations  that  cannot 
stand  the  pure  eye  of  Christ.  It  is  an  easy  matter 
for  some  to  say,  Lord,  Lord,  to  assent  to  any  form 
of  sound  doctrine,  and  even  to  become  enthusiastic 
over  watchwords  of  religion,  but  it  is  hard  for  all  of 
us  to  do  the  will  of  our  Father,  ''  to  do  justice  and 
love  mercy  and  walk  humbly  with  our  God." 

There  is  special  need  now  for  clear-eyed,  brave- 
hearted  prophets  in  the  American  pulpits,  men  who  are 
not  only  lovers  of  the  individual  but  who  have  the 
social  passion  and  spiritual  patriotism  of  Amos  and 
Hosea,  of  Isaiah  and  Christ. 

We  know  something  of  the  rapid  and  complex  and 
even  revolutionary  changes  that  have  affected  the  social 
and  industrial  life  of  our  time.  And  yet  we  are  too 
close  to  them  to  fully  measure  their  significance  or 
foresee  their  outcome.  The  late  Dr.  Henderson  of 
Chicago  University,  a  keen  and  sympathetic  interpreter 
of  social  conditions,  said  before  the  world-war,  **  We 
now  live  in  the  midst  of  a  transformation  more  signifi- 
cant than  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  rise  of 
modern  nationalism  or  the  Reformation." 

The  war  has  revealed  in  a  startling  way  the  fact  of 
social  forces:  it  has  not  lessened  their  working  or 
made  more  easy  their  interpretation. 

Invention  applied  to  work  and  travel  has  made  the 
centralization  of  industry  and  population  in  great  cit- 
ies, the  great  and  tragic  contrasts  of  condition,  such 
wealth  and  power  and  splendor  as  the  world  has  never 
seen  —  and  monotonous  stretches  of  hopeless,  sudden 


26o  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

poverty  that  mock  our  civilization  and  challenge  the 
saving  power  of  the  Gospel. 

Business  and  industry  have  grown  from  the  local 
to  the  national  and  the  international,  and  great  com- 
binations of  men  make  the  personal  element  less  pos- 
sible, fix  men  in  a  system  and  lessen  the  sense  of  per- 
sonal responsibility  for  imperfect  and  unjust  condi- 
tions. Not  infrequently  the  wrong  spirit  towards  men 
deadens  or  embitters  the  hearts  of  multitudes  and 
raises  a  barrier  directly  athwart  the  path  of  the  Gospel. 

The  new  conditions  of  industry  but  partly  Chris- 
tianized are  aggravated  by  unassimilated  masses  of 
Old  World  peoples  with  their  various  and  conflicting 
ideals  that  threaten  our  simple  and  pure  ideas  of  wor- 
ship, of  the  day  of  rest,  of  the  family,  of  recreation 
and  of  democracy  itself. 

With  the  growth  of  society  and  the  increase  of 
wealth,  the  separation  of  men  in  classes  appears.  So- 
cial unity  is  lessened,  spiritual  standards  are  weakened, 
it  becomes  more  difficult  to  permeate  the  mass  of  men 
with  Christian  faith. 

Every  question  to-day  is  a  social  question.  No 
truth  deals  with  the  man  alone:  every  truth  goes 
through  the  individual  to  his  place  and  work  in  the 
world  and  his  relationship  to  other  lives. 

The  pulpit  must  be  true  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ  in 
the  light  of  present  conditions.  Loyalty  to  Christ 
means  no  less  than  the  application  of  his  principles 
to  present  issues,  the  carrying  out  of  the  law  of  re- 
demption to  its  utmost  social  implications. 

Social  principles  are  involved  in  every  truth  of  the 
Gospel.  They  must  be  taught  to  form  the  ethical 
standards  of  men  and  a  righteous  public  opinion. 

In  this  way  shall  leaders  be  called  and  trained  in  the 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        261 

social  conscience,  that  evils  may  be  removed  and  just 
and  humane  conditions  established. 

And  this  is  necessary  to  give  the  true  goal  and  the 
sufficient  motive  to  all  social  service.  It  must  be  con- 
nected with  the  power  that  makes  a  new  life. 

It  is  a  difficult  time  for  the  preacher  to  live  and 
speak  the  fullest  truth.  Position  and  power  must  not 
cover  his  eyes  or  put  a  gag  upon  his  lips.  It  requires 
wise  men,  loving  men,  fearless  men;  men  who  love 
their  fellows  too  well  to  keep  a  guilty  silence  in  the 
presence  of  evil;  men  who  believe  in  Christ  and  his 
Kingdom  too  profoundly  to  be  disturbed  by  the  tem- 
porary triumphs  of  evil  and  the  slow  progress  of 
righteousness. 

We  have  such  men  in  the  pulpit.  There  might  be 
more,  but  there  are  enough  to  show  the  Spirit  of  the 
Church.  The  divine  fire  is  touching  the  conscience 
of  our  best  preachers.  The  social  program  of  our 
federated  churches  shows  the  way  that  Christian 
thought  is  pointing. 

The  recent  appeal  of  a  group  of  the  finest  ministers 
of  New  York  City  for  the  spirit  of  order,  of  calm- 
ness and  fairness,  for  the  basic  rights  of  the  Republic 
of  free  speech  and  free  press  within  reasonable  limits, 
and  the  leaving  to  the  constituted  authorities  the  con- 
trol of  anti-social  forces,  was  a  brave  expression  of 
spiritual  vision. 

Let  me  give  you  two  examples  of  this  prophetic 
speaking  of  the  Social  Gospel. 

I  quote  first,  from  the  sermon  of  the  late  Bishop 
Henry  C.  Potter  of  New  York  at  the  dedication  of 
Grace  Chapel,  East  14th  Street. 

**  The  growth  of  wealth  and  luxury  —  wicked, 
wasteful  and  wanton,  as  before  God  I  declare  that 


262  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

luxury  to  be  —  has  been  matched  step  by  step  by  a 
deadening  and  deepening  poverty  which  has  left  whole 
neighborhoods  of  people  practically  without  hope  and 
without  aspiration.  At  such  a  time  for  the  Church  of 
God  to  sit  still  and  be  content  with  theories  of  its 
duty  outlawed  by  time  and  long  ago  demonstrated  to 
be  grotesquely  inadequate  to  the  demands  of  a  living 
situation,  this  is  to  deserve  the  scorn  of  men  and  the 
curse  of  God !  Take  my  word  for  it,  men  and  breth- 
ren, unless  you  and  I  and  all  men  who  have  any  life 
or  stewardship  of  talents  or  means,  of  whatever  sort, 
are  willing  to  get  up  out  of  our  sloth  and  ease  and 
selfish  dilettanteism  of  service,  and  get  down  among 
the  people  who  are  battling  amid  their  poverty  and 
ignorance  —  young  girls  for  their  chastity,  young  men 
for  their  better  ideal  of  righteousness,  old  and  young 
alike  for  one  clear  ray  of  the  immortal  courage  and 
the  immortal  hope  —  then  verily  the  Church  in  its 
stately  splendor,  its  Apostolic  orders,  its  venerable  rit- 
ual, its  decorous  and  dignified  conventions,  is  revealed 
as  simply  a  monstrous  and  insolent  impertinence." 

The  second  extract  is  from  a  well-known  Baptist 
preacher  of  the  Central  West,  now  a  professor  of 
preaching  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 

**  I  believe  in  the  Golden  Rule  of  Jesus,  a  man  says. 
Not  a  bad  first  article  for  any  man's  faith,  if  he  really 
believes  it. 

**  Let  him  say  it  over  to  himself  very  thoughtfully 
and  see  if  he  means  it.  *  I  believe  that  babies  every- 
where should  be  as  well  born  and  kindly  tended  as  I 
would  have  my  own;  that  motherhood  should  be  as 
protected  as  I  would  have  the  mother  that  is  dearest 
to  me;  that  childhood  should  be  as  joyous  and  youth 
as  free  to  come  to  its  own  as  mine  should  be  if  I 


THE  PULPIT  AND  SOCIAL  WELFARE        263 

could  have  my  wish;  that  womanhood  should  be 
guarded  everywhere  with  the  chivalry  that  I  would 
give  my  best ;  that  every  man's  labor  should  be  as  hon- 
ored and  as  fairly  estimated  as  I  want  mine  to  be; 
that  all  lives  should  be  lightened  and  blessed  with  the 
leisure  that  I  love  for  myself ;  that  the  higher  human 
values  for  which  I  crave  should  be  available  for  all 
mankind;  that  every  man's  future  should  be  cared 
for  as  I  would  have  my  own;  and  that  every  one 
everywhere  should  have  the  love  and  kindly  esteem 
and  generous  appreciation  that  I  desire  so  keenly  for 
myself/  Loving  men  whom  he  has  seen  is  an  element 
of  the  religious  experience,  even  though  as  yet  he  may 
not  know  God  whom  he  has  not  seen."  ^  Where  will 
you  find  a  more  simple  and  complete  interpretation  of 
the  law  of  love ! 

The  American  pulpit  has  grown  in  humanness,  in 
social  understanding  and  sympathy  and  so  in  reality. 
Such  sermons  are  a  prophecy  of  the  renewed  leader- 
ship of  the  American  pulpit  and  its  more  vital  influ- 
ence on  the  questions  and  movements  of  social  well- 
being. 

^ "  University  of  Chicago  Sermons,"  p.  318. 


XII 

THE   PUIPIT   AND   THE    NATION 

The  Pulpit  has  been  a  chief  force  in  the  higher  life 
of  the  nation. 


Let  the  facts  of  our  history  tell  their  own  story. 
America  was  thought  out  and  planned  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  a  Christian  church.  It's  beginning  was  the 
most  golden  romance  outside  the  Bible.  It  was  a  new 
book  of  Genesis.  This  New  World  was  dedicated  to 
the  proposition  that  Christ's  will  is  the  only  worthy 
and  wholesome  law  for  the  State.  The  Pilgrim 
Church  created  the  Pilgrim  State  and  drew  up  in  the 
cabin  of  the  Mayflower  *'  the  first  instrument  confer- 
ring equal  civil  and  religious  rights  on  every  member 
of  the  Commonwealth." 

The  influence  of  the  pulpit  in  the  early  New  Eng- 
land colonies  is  unmistakable.  Roger  Williams  and 
Rhode  Island  are  one.  When  John  Milton  was  mak- 
ing his  great  plea  for  civil  liberty,  Roger  Williams, 
his  contemporary,  went  far  beyond  him  in  his  plea 
for  soul  liberty.  He  taught  us  America's  greatest 
contribution  to  civilization,  a  free  church  in  a  free 
State.  And  Thomas  Hooker  did  as  much  for  Con- 
necticut. His  thought  is  in  every  line  of  the  Consti- 
tution which  has  been  the  model  for  so  many  other 
States  until  John  Fiske  calls  him  the  **  Father  of 
American  Democracy." 

264 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  265 

With  the  broadening  of  the  century,  the  coming  of 
new  peoples,  the  conquest  of  nature,  the  development 
of  varied  life,  other  interests  besides  the  Church  came 
to  their  rightful  place.  The  ministry  could  not  keep 
the  same  relative  position.  Yet  Jonathan  Edwards 
stands  as  the  chief  figure  of  eighteenth  century  Amer- 
ica. We  can  never  estimate  his  influence  on  national 
life.  It  is  felt  in  literature  and  art,  in  science  and 
political  economy  and  lives  in  the  social  movements  of 
our  day. 

When  we  think  of  the  nineteenth  century  America, 
what  names  come  crowding  upon  the  page !  Thinkers 
and  poets,  statesmen  and  inventors,  soldiers  and  mer- 
chants. Mr.  Carnegie  has  given  his  list  of  the  twenty 
greatest  names  of  our  English  race  and  they  are  largely 
iron-masters!  If  we  could  really  analyze  the  forces 
that  make  us  great  as  a  nation,  we  should  never  leave 
out  the  moral  and  spiritual.  In  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  no  man  more  fully  and  energet- 
ically embodied  these  forces  than  Lyman  Beecher.  He 
was  no  less  a  national  figure  than  Daniel  Webster. 
By  his  sermons,  his  lectures,  his  pamphlets  he  tried  to 
keep  the  pioneer,  progressive  spirit  of  the  nation  Chris- 
tian. 

It  is  no  harder  to  find  the  preacher's  place  in  the 
second  half  of  the  century.  In  the  crisis  of  our  na- 
tional life,  we  instinctively  think  of  one  name.  And 
his  fame  grows  with  the  years.  But  in  the  staff 
around  Lincoln,  '*  the  first  American,"  no  one  wrought 
more  nobly  than  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He  laid,  the 
golden  reed  •  of  the  Sanctuary  upon  every  question 
that  came  into  the  field  of  morals.  In  the  darkest 
hour  Lincoln  sent  him  to  England  to  interpret  the 
struggle  of  a  free  people.     His  speeches  at  Liverpool, 


266  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

Manchester,  Birmingham,  are  our  highest  examples  of 
inspired  oratory.  They  awakened  the  conscience  of 
England  and  prevented  the  Government  from  recog- 
nizing the  Southern  Confederacy. 

Very  different  but  no  less  noble  was  the  influence 
of  Phillips  Brooks.  In  the  darkest  hour  of  the  Civil 
War,  he  set  his  great  manhood  to  the  task  of  inter- 
preting the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  nation.  In  varied 
and  speaking  symbol  and  with  passionate  earnestness 
he  spoke  of  the  nation  as  the  corporate  life  of  the 
people,  the  sphere  of  the  highest  manhood,  the  agent 
of  the  divine  purpose.  He  lifted  the  contest  above  the 
mists  and  confusions  of  parties,  where  the  people  could 
see  the  great  issues  at  stake,  the  principles  of  justice 
and  humanity  and  brotherhood.  He  made  the  people 
feel  that  the  cause  of  the  Union  was  the  cause  of  God. 

These  are  great  names,  ranking  with  the  highest  in 
any  calling.  But  the  same  truth  holds  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  pulpit.  We  could  not  live  without  the  truths 
they  declare.  We  could  not  grow  in  worth  without 
the  ideals  they  represent.  •  As  Mr.  Wilson  said  at 
Carlisle,  England,  in  the  church  once  served  by  his 
maternal  grandfather,  "  From  such  quiet  places  as 
these  go  forth  influences  that  bless  the  life  of  the  na- 
tion." 


It  is  well  to  go  deeper  if  we  can  and  ask  —  In  what 
way  has  the  pulpit  contributed  to  the  higher  life  of  the 
nation  ? 

It  has  made  for  social  unity.  It  has  brought  peo- 
ple together  under  the  highest  motives  for  worship  and 
service.  In  a  democracy  whose  weakness  is  always 
lack    of    authority    and    obedience,    in    this    western 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  267 

world  whose  very  air  and  opportunity  breed  extreme 
individualism,  the  pulpit  by  personal  influence  and 
teaching  has  brought  diverse  peoples  and  traditions 
into  such  vital  contact  as  to  make  possible  the  growth 
of  strong  public  opinion  and  cooperation  for  common 
interests.  It  has  worked  for  that  unity  of  thought 
and  spirit  that  has  made  possible  the  expression  of 
a  common  life. 

The  pulpit  has  made  for  moral  order  and  growth. 
The  real  foes  of  the  nation,  as  in  Tennyson's  picture 
of  King  Arthur's  realm,  are  within  and  not  on  the 
border.  They  are  the  selfish  passions  of  men  that 
demand  freedom  though  others  are  enslaved  thereby 
and  society  is  disintegrated. 

How  should  personal  vengeance  yield  to  law  ?  How 
should  men  learn  to  secure  redress  for  wrong  by  or- 
derly process  of  the  State?  I  have  told  how  young 
Lyman  Beecher  so  spoke  as  to  rouse  the  conscience 
of  the  people  and  make  the  duel  a  hated  thing. 

It  was  the  same  brave  voice  that  spoke  against  the 
evils  of  strong  drink,  and  began  the  process  of  educa- 
tion and  legislation  for  temperance,  the  most  important 
social  reform.  It  was  Dr.  Channing  who  first  pointed 
out  the  relation  between  intemperance  and  industrial 
and  home  conditions  and  gave  the  temperance  reform 
its  larger  vision. 

And  the  pulpit  had  to  do  with  the  removal  of  a 
social  wrong  eating  at  the  very  heart  of  the  Republic. 
A  democracy  based  on  the  doctrine  of  freedom  and 
equality  before  the  law,  yet  holding  men  as  chattels! 
The  country,-  as  Lincoln  said,  could  not  long  remain 
half  slave  and  half  free.  The  struggle  was  inevi- 
table. 

All  churches  condemned  slavery  at  first.     But  it  be- 


268  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

came  so  interwoven  with  society  and  prosperity  that 
even  good  men  were  blinded  and  apologized  for  the 
evil. 

*'  Many  there  were  who  made  great  haste  and  sold 
Unto  the  cunning  enemy  their  swords." 

But  there  were  enough  prophets  in  our  pulpit,  men 
like  Channing,  Bushnell,  Beecher,  to  hold  God's  plumb 
line  against  our  social  institutions  and  convince  the  na- 
tion of  its  sin.  So  men  were  ready  to  pay  the  utmost 
price  for  a  purified  nation. 

The  pulpit  has  made  for  intelligent  citizenship.  It 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  Republic  that  every  child  is  to 
be  educated  as  a  potential  citizen.  But  the  child  has 
this  dignity  because  the  Christian  pulpit  has  taught 
the  worth  and  sacredness  of  human  life.  The  frontis- 
piece of  the  old  New  England  speller  had  a  church, 
and  nearby  a  school  house,  a  mill  and  a  farmer  plow- 
ing his  field.  Three  centuries  of  our  history  are  in 
that  picture.  Our  schools  and  colleges  began  in  reli- 
gion and  the  ministers  were  largely  the  founders  and 
teachers.  Our  education  has  passed  largely  beyond 
the  Church,  but  it  still  remains  true  that  the  teaching 
of  the  pulpit  everywhere  supports  the  schools  of  the 
people  and  awakens  in  our  youth  the  desire  for  higher 
training. 

And  finally  the  pulpit  has  made  for  a  spiritual  con- 
ception of  the  national  life.  It  was  religion  that  gave 
us  our  national  life.  Our  fathers  had  never  revolted 
save  for  the  great  religious  awakening  that  just  pre- 
ceded the  Revolution.  Society  and  business  did  not 
want  the  revolt.  But  it  was  the  inevitable  step  of  the 
awakened  democracy,  the  common  man  asserting  his 
right  because  he  had  found  his  soul. 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  269 

And  at  a  later  day  when  the  question  was  whether 
the  nation  was  a  mere  compact  of  States  to  be  broken 
at  will,  or  a  life  that  was  to  be  inviolate,  it  was  reH- 
gion  that  gave  the  worthy  conception  of  the  State,  and 
nerved  the  arm  to  maintain  it.  Dr.  Mulford's  "  Na- 
tion "  gave  statesmen  the  true  political  philosophy  and 
voiced  the  impulse  of  marching  thousands.  What  was 
the  nation?  The  highest  expression  of  the  corporate 
life  of  the  people,  an  organ  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
It  was  organic  and  what  God  had  joined  man  had  no 
right  to  put  asunder.  And  it  was  religious,  to  carry 
out  God's  purpose  of  good  for  all  men.  It  found  its 
wealth  not  in  houses  and  lands,  in  factories  and  rail- 
ways, but  (in  the  words  of  Ruskin)  "  in  as  many  as 
possible  full-breathed,  happy  hearted  human  crea- 
tures." It  is  the  popular  expression  of  the  democracy 
of  Christ. 

I  am  sure  that  I  have  not  over-emphasized  the  in- 
fluence of  the  pulpit  in  our  national  life.  Great 
statesmen  often  recognize  the  value  of  spiritual  lead- 
ers. '*  We  politicians,"  said  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  the 
English  Premier,  ''  only  touch  the  fringes  of  life ;  but 
the  ministry  deal  with  the  real  problems  of  life,  death 
and  the  hereafter."  The  pulpit  is  dealing  with  spirit- 
ual forces  often  unseen  and  unmeasured.  And  we 
are  often  dazzled  by  the  men  who  live  in  the  eye  of 
the  world.  But  long  after  the  world's  captains  with 
their  drums  and  guns  are  silent  and  the  noisy  poli- 
ticians of  the  day  have  been  forgotten,  will  the  quiet, 
unselfish  men  who  have  taught  the  truths  of  character 
and  social  well-being  in  their  pulpit  ministrations  and 
in  their  daily  walk  and  conversation  as  they  went  in 
and  out  of  the  homes  of  their  parishioners,  be  regarded 
as  the  nation's  real  benefactors. 


270  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 


And  what  can  be  said  of  the  present-day  pulpit? 
Is  it  a  commanding  and  controlling  voice  in  our  na- 
tional life? 

The  first  year  of  our  entrance  into  the  war  a  clever 
writer  sharply  arraigned  the  pulpit  for  its  ignorance 
or  indifference  to  the  great  questions  involved.  While 
the  press  was  aflame  with  discussion,  while  public  men 
and  educators  were  alive  to  the  issue  and  trying  in 
every  way  to  arouse  the  spirit  of  America,  the  men 
in  the  pulpits  held  aloof,  absorbed  in  their  own  work, 
unmindful  of  their  prophetic  leadership,  content  to 
warm  themselves  by  ecclesiastical  fires  while  their  mas- 
ter was  being  crucified  afresh  by  the  world.  Such  was 
the  charge.  Was  it  true?  There  was  enough  truth 
to  disturb  a  few  hypersensitive  souls.  But  the  ma- 
jority of  the  pulpit  did  not  recognize  themselves  in  the 
picture. 

It  is  true  that  only  a  few  of  our  pulpits  sounded  the 
trumpet  call  to  arms. 

There  were  many  preachers  of  foreign  birth,  who 
while  loyal  to  America  still  cherished  precious  memories 
of  other  lands  and  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  their 
adopted  country  lifting  up  hands  against  their  kindred. 
It  speaks  well  for  the  influence  of  America,  and  of 
the  receptiveness  and  appreciation  of  these  new  peo- 
ples, that  so  few  of  their  ministers  were  disloyal,  that 
so  many  pulpits  were  outspoken  and  that  where  they 
did  not  have  the  heart  to  speak,  they  suffered  in  si- 
lence. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  war  was  a  rude  and 
cruel  shattering  of  our  ideals,  that  no  thoughtful  man 
could  enter  it  with  a  light  heart.     It  was  thought  that 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  271 

the  wonderful  progress  of  the  world  made  for  peace. 
Discovery  and  invention,  industry  and  commerce  had 
brought  the  nations  together.  The  most  notable  fact 
of  the  generation  had  been  the  growth  of  race  unity. 
The  widespread  interest  in  social  welfare,  the  mission- 
ary movement  that  had  touched  every  known  land  had 
given  hope  of  an  era  of  peace  and  good  will.  Even 
the  increase  of  armaments  and  the  fear  of  gathering 
armies  was  stilled  by  the  assurance  that  they  were 
not  for  war  but  to  guard  the  peace  of  the  world.  In 
spite  of  previous  warnings,  until  the  last  moment,  the 
leaders  of  the  nations  did  not  believe  war  possible.  It 
came  as  a  terrible  shock  to  our  Christian  pulpit.  How 
could  the  teachings  and  hopes  of  a  lifetime  be  re- 
versed! How  could  they  see  God  on  the  field  when 
the  bars  of  the  jungle  were  let  down.  What  could 
they  say?  Many  were  dumbfounded.  They  were  lit- 
erally dumb  before  the  Lord.  They  said  with  the 
Psalmist,  "  I  opened  not  my  mouth,  because  Thou  didst 
it." 

Then  many  of  our  best  men,  especially  those  of  so- 
cial vision,  who  knew  history  and  modern  life,  who 
could  trace  back  to  the  causes  of  war,  who  knew  that 
the  rivalries  and  aggressions  of  nations  were  largely 
for  new  markets,  could  not  feel  at  once  that  the  issue 
was  so  clear  cut,  that  it  was  all  black  and  all  white, 
autocracy  against  democracy.  They  saw  the  most 
cruel  dominion  of  modern  times  —  Russia  —  on  the 
side  of  the  Allies.  They  saw  our  own  nation  made 
up  of  polyglot  peoples  with  divided  loyalties,  the  need 
of  an  unmistakable  cause  and  a  single  united  purpose 
before  we  should  ignore  our  traditional  American  po- 
sition and  throw  the  force  of  the  nation  into  the  world- 
combat.     It  is  no  wonder  that  some  of  the  best  men 


2.^2  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

hesitated.  I  have  spoken  so  fully  because  we  must 
do  justice  to  their  motives.  History,  written  not  with 
passion  but  with  calmness  and  fairness,  will  justify 
their  sincerity  and  loyalty. 

Still  other  pulpits  felt  that  their  best  service  to  the 
nation  was  not  in  discussion  of  national  questions  but 
in  interpreting  the  great  facts  of  God  and  the  spiritual 
life  from  which  the  renewal  of  all  life  comes,  that 
idealism  and  endurance,  that  loyalty  and  heroism  that 
make  a  nation  great.  When  the  committee  on  Social 
Service  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  went  to  the  White 
House  with  the  question  — **  What  can  we  do  to  help 
the  nation  in  this  day  of  struggle?  " —  Mr.  Wilson  an- 
swered unhesitatingly,  **  You  can  best  serve  the  nation 
by  keeping  the  religious  life  of  the  churches  at  the 
full."  This  lesson  was  first  learned  by  the  English 
and  Scotch  pulpit. 

The  early  months  of  the  war  saw  a  great  moral 
awakening.  All  peoples  felt  it.  The  call  of  country, 
the  demands  of  sacrifice,  the  uncertainties  of  the  fu- 
ture all  called  out  latent  nobility  and  fixed  the  thoughts 
upon  something  higher  than  gain  or  pleasure.  Words- 
worth's words  seemed  true  again. 

France  seemed  standing  on  the  top  of  golden  hours 
And  Europe  born  again. 

The  pulpit  felt  the  spiritual  wave  and  tried  to  di- 
rect and  strengthen  it.  Patriotism  seemed  identical 
with  religion,  and  the  sermon  was  the  effort  to  inter- 
pret the  contest  in  which  the  nation  was  engaged.  But 
the  pulpit  soon  passed  to  deeper  needs.  Men  felt  the 
perils  to  the  religious  life  in  war,  however  necessary 
and  holy  the   cause.     They   saw   the   wasting   eflPects 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  273 

upon  the  higher  life  of  the  people,  the  terrible  losses 
that  made  the  days  gray  and  comfortless,  that  turned 
so  many  lives  into  reckless  denial  or  dumb  despair. 

With  this  deeper  vision  of  human  need,  the  pulpit 
turned  the  thoughts  of  the  people  to  God,  to  the  truths 
and  duties  of  the  religious  life.  One  of  the  notable 
volumes  of  sermons  during  the  war  was  by  W.  P. 
Paterson,  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  University  of 
Edinburgh.  It  is  called  '*  In  the  Day  of  the  Ordeal," 
and  is  dedicated  '*  To  my  wife  and  in  memory  of  our 
sons :  R.  S.  Paterson,  2nd  Lieutenant  Royal  Field  Ar- 
tillery, Neuve  Chapelle,  nth  of  March,  1915;  W.  P. 
Paterson,  Captain  King's  Own  Scottish  Borderers, 
Deville  Wood,  31st  July,  1916." 

There  is  the  very  flower  of  his  house  cut  down  in 
its  youth.  And  what  does  the  great  father  say  when 
he  preached  the  Gospel  ? 

There  is  the  greatest  economy  of  personal  reference. 
He  turns  from  his  own  bitter  sorrow  to  the  Eternal 
God.  How  shall  he  comfort  men?  How  shall  he 
inspire  them  to  the  life  of  sons?  He  speaks  of  the 
way  of  God  with  the  nation  and  the  social  mission  of 
the  Church,  but  the  great  messages  are  deeply  spirit- 
ual. The  Magnetism  of  the  Cross,  Free  Grace,  Re- 
pentance, Reverence,  the  Quest  of  Tranquillity. 

I  have  said  all  this  to  form  some  background,  some 
standard  by  which  to  measure  our  own  pulpit. 

I  feel  that  the  American  pulpit  as  a  whole  was  true 
to  its  great  religious  obligations.  There  were  men 
who  were  restless  and  unsettled,  without  vision  and 
without  faith.  But  the  best  men  held  themselves  all 
the  more  firmly  to  their  tasks.  Their  gospel  came  not 
in  word  only  but  in  power.  They  sent  forth  their 
choicest  youth  with  consecration  to  their  high  calling 


274  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

and  they  sustained  the  weary  and  the  lonely  with  the 
ministration  of  spiritual  friendship. 

They  taught  the  sacredness  of  the  nation's  life  and 
helped  the  new  Americans  to  answer  the  country's 
call  in  the  spirit  of  loyal  sons.  They  interpreted  the 
meaning  of  the  struggle  in  terms  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  They  called  for  gifts  of  money  and  the  far 
richer  gifts  of  life  on  the  plea  of  the  world's  need  and 
the  ideal  of  an  unselfish  service.  Here  and  there  a 
sensational  pulpit  detailed  the  atrocities  of  the  Ger- 
mans, supping  full  with  horrors,  and  even  after  the 
armistice  there  were  preachers  who  proclaimed  the 
Gospel  of  hate,  but  they  were  very  few.  The  Amer- 
ican pulpit  as  a  whole  was  loyal  to  Christ  in  express- 
ing the  lesser  loyalty  to  a  Government.  That  was  a 
fine  pledge  that  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  presented  to  all  the 
men  of  the  officers'  training  camps,  **  We  undertake 
to  maintain  our  part  of  the  war  free  from  hatred, 
brutality  or  graft,  true  to  the  American  purpose  and 
Ideals."  And  the  fact  that  our  soldiers  and  sailors 
and  airmen  have  come  home,  and  so  glad  to  get  home 
and  be  quickly  absorbed  in  the  nation's  work  and  life, 
so  many  with  noble  record  and  unsullied  name,  is  due 
in  large  part  to  the  teaching  of  our  Christian  pulpit 
and  to  the  efforts  that  Christian  men  and  women  made 
to  keep  the  morale  of  our  forces  and  the  soul  of  the 
nation. 


In  the  first  year  of  the  war  Mr.  Elihu  Root  made 
an  address  at  the  opening  of  Hamilton  College,  in 
which  he  said,  **  No  man  can  know  the  future.  But 
it  is  certain  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  new  day. 
Great  and  far-reaching  events  will  take  place  what- 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  275 

ever  the  issue  —  the  world  will  not  be  the  same  after 
the  war."  And  he  urged  the  young  men  to  that  life 
of  reverence  and  fidelity  and  idealism  that  would  pre- 
pare them  to  take  their  place  in  the  new  world. 

I  know  there  are  many  who  now  say,  where  is  the 
new  world?  and  they  are  busy  in  trying  to  make  the 
glory  of  the  morning  fade  into  the  light  of  common 
day.  They  think,  and  they  try  to  make  other  people 
think  —  We  are  in  the  same  old  world. 

But  however  invisible  and  immeasurable  the  forces, 
unless  the  lessons  of  history  are  no  guide,  we  are  in 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  And  what  shall  the  pul- 
pit do  to  help  America  take  its  place  in  the  life  of  the 
race? 

The  pulpit  can  teach  a  true  patriotism.  It  must  be 
spiritual,  not  commercial,  not  what  we  can  get  out  of 
America,  but  how  can  America  help  to  the  best  man- 
hood and  womanhood.  All  sorts  of  organizations 
from  political  parties  to  Rotary  clubs  are  calling  upon 
the  people  to  preserve  American  ideals.  And  they 
often  mean  something  fixed  and  final,  the  past  to 
be  reared  into  a  monument,  not  the  seed  of  a  growing 
life. 

The  pulpit  can  take  the  ideals  of  the  fathers,  the 
truths  for  which  Lincoln  stood,  the  kind  of  democracy 
that  he  embodied,  and  apply  them  to  the  life  and  prob- 
lems of  our  own  time. 

The  pulpit  must  stand  for  the  just  authority  of  the 
State.  Every  nation  feels  the  effects  of  the  violent 
revolutions  of  Central  and  Eastern  Europe.  There 
are  idealists  who  would  overthrow  the  existing  order 
of  society.  And  there  are  evil,  bitter  men  who  are 
foes  of  all  order.  A  spark  may  start  a  conflagration. 
There  can  be  no  liberty  without  order,  without  self- 


276  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

restraint,  without  subjection  of  personal  desires  to  the 
expressed  will  of  the  people. 

But  mob  rule  is  only  another  kind  of  anarchy.  The 
suppression  of  free  speech  because  it  is  critical  of 
existing  institutions  and  conditions  and  would  change 
them  by  changing  public  opinion,  the  using  of  force 
to  keep  things  as  they  are,  may  violate  the  simplest 
rights  of  the  Republic  and  is  the  sure  way  to  increased 
unrest  and  violence.  Suppressed  rights  are  sure  to 
become  volcanic. 

The  pulpit  by  its  quietness,  its  tolerance,  its  faith  in 
democracy,  can  do  much  to  subdue  the  passions  of  the 
day,  remove  suspicion  and  enmity,  the  worst  vestige 
of  war,  increase  the  social  outlook,  and  so  a  willing 
obedience  to  law,  as  the  bond  of  brotherhood. 

We  have  multitudes  of  peoples  with  us  and  yet  not 
of  us,  practically  aliens,  unassimilated  elements  in  our 
national  life.  If  they  find  a  happy  life  here,  they 
learn  to  love  the  land  and  are  as  loyal  as  any  Amer- 
ican who  traces  his  ancestry  from  Plymouth  Rock. 
If  they  are  despised,  exploited,  denied  the  standards 
of  decent  living  they  become  our  dynamite. 

A  nation  is  made  by  the  growth  of  common  ideals; 
never  by  the  imposition  of  a  single  language  or  po- 
litical system.  **  Revolutionary  radicalism  will  fall 
of  its  own  weight,"  said  Mr.  Hoover,  "  as  we  remove 
the  spirit  of  caste  and  give  to  every  man  a  fair 
chance." 

And  the  pulpit  can  do  no  better  work  for  the  nation 
than  to  teach  the  true  attitude  towards  these  new  peo- 
ples and  help  them  to  take  their  place  as  true  Ameri- 
cans. It  means  that  the  pulpit  teaches  the  true  stand- 
ard of  individual  worth. 

The  individual  man  is  having  a  new  value  set  upon 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  277 

him  in  this  western  world.  The  demands  of  national 
life  shook  us  out  of  our  smug  content  and  our  social 
satisfaction.  Every  man  is  of  value  to  the  national 
life.  The  draft  recognized  his  worth  and  searched 
him  out.  It  was  not  the  name  he  bore  or  the  lan- 
guage he  spoke,  not  the  size  of  the  check  he  could 
draw  or  the  Church  to  which  he  belonged,  but  the 
simple  question  of  his  manhood,  his  physical  and  moral 
worth,  what  he  could  contribute  individually  to  the 
national  force. 

Men  from  every  class  and  race  and  work  stood 
side  by  side,  in  a  new  sense  of  value,  in  the  light  of 
the  new  duty.  A  revolution  took  place,  a  lifting  up 
of  the  first  things  of  life.  It  has  immense  significance 
for  our  national  life  and  the  greatest  encouragement 
and  lesson  for  our  own  life. 

There  are  still  people  who  capitalize  their  patriotism, 
who  wrap  the  flag  about  them  to  hide  their  bulging 
pockets.  But  thank  God!  we  are  not  sunk  in  ma- 
terialism. We  have  not  lost  our  sense  of  real  values. 
Gifts  are  oflFered  with  lavish  abundance.  One  of  our 
ministers  asks  of  his  church  an  offering  of  $3,000  for 
the  Armenian  relief,  and  $8,000  overflow  the  collec- 
tion plates. 

All  this  is  an  indication  of  personal  values,  it  is 
placing  the  man  before  his  things.  The  fact  that  the 
soul  of  man  is  alive,  that  there  is  this  great  response 
to  higher  values,  is  no  doubt  due  in  large  part  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Christian  pulpit.  The  soul  of  Amer- 
ica is  alive  because  its  religious  life  is  so  pervasive. 
It  took  a  crisis  to  bring  it  out.  It  cheers  us  to  show 
that  the  work  of  the  pulpit  has  not  been  in  vain.  It 
points  out  our  unmistakable  task,  to  so  present  the 
truths  and  life  of  Christianity  that  they  shall  make 


278  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

their  supreme,  demand.  The  call  of  country  cannot 
be  higher  than  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

And  finally,  it  is  the  work  of  the  pulpit  to  lift  up 
the  Christian  ideals  for  which  the  war  was  fought. 
They  are  the  ideals  of  justice  and  brotherhood,  and 
so  ideals  of  peace.  '*  I  hate  war,"  said  a  distinguished 
English  General,  '"  I  love  peace  and  home  and  family, 
but  we  are  in  this  great  cause  and  we  must  fight  it 
out  to  the  end."  *'  This  is  a  war  against  war,"  said 
General  Smuts  of  South  Africa.  There  can  be  no 
compensation  for  the  measureless  sacrifice  save  in  a 
new  era  of  human  rights  and  good  will  and  peace. 
The  Christian  pulpit  must  see  to  it  that  the  ideal  is 
not  dimmed  or  diminished.  Other  voices  are  calling 
to  us.  Lower  conceptions  are  being  urged  as  the  only 
way  of  the  race.  A  well-known  judge  says,  **  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  International  Law.  The  Christian 
law  may  work  between  man  and  man.  But  now  we 
know  that  the  relations  of  nations  can  only  be  gov- 
erned by  force."  With  one  hand  he  called  upon  the 
God  of  Christ  and  with  the  other  he  opened  the  bars 
of  the  jungle.  A  group  of  men  at  a  great  University 
talk  about  the  relation  of  the  United  States  and  Japan. 
After  this  war,  shall  we  be  able  to  maintain  friendly 
relations  with  the  ambitious  leader  of  the  Orient? 
And  their  conclusion  is  baldly  and  coldly  stated,  that 
peace  in  the  Pacific  depends  upon  our  keeping  up  a 
great  navy  and  a  powerful  standing  army. 

Shall  the  future  welfare  of  the  race  depend  upon 
militarism?  Shall  we  say  that  the  hope  of  poets  and 
prophets  is  but  the  dream  of  mad  enthusiasts?  Shall 
might  —  not  love  —  be  the  law  of  life?  Shall  John 
Galsworthy's  word  be  true  that  after  this  war  **  the 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  NATION  279 

dogmas  of  Christianity  shall  be  found  shot  through 
and  through  ?  " 

It  is  for  the  pulpit  to  say  whether  Christ  has  abdi- 
cated, whether  our  Gospel  has  the  power  of  personal 
and  national  renewal. 

The  question  is:  Shall  the  idealism  that  carried 
our  nation  into  the  war  be  continued  through  the  far 
more  important  and  difficult  process  of  peace?  Hav- 
ing put  our  hands  to  the  plow,  shall  we  turn  back? 
Having  forgotten  an  exclusive  and  isolated  national- 
ism, and  given  the  world  an  example  of  disinterested 
service  shall  we  now  think  solely  or  chiefly  of  our- 
selves. Shall  it  be  America  first,  and  America  for 
Americans?  Shall  we  practically  say,  Every  nation 
for  itself,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindermost?  It  is 
incredible  and  it  must  be  made  impossible.  A  selfish, 
narrow  nationalism  is  no  better  than  a  selfish,  narrow 
individualism.  A  League  of  Nations  is  the  noblest 
conception  the  world  has  seen.  It  seems  necessary 
to  the  peace  of  the  world.  It  is  the  organized  ex- 
pression of  the  good  will  of  the  world  and  it  may  be 
the  agent  of  the  very  Kingdom  of  God. 

There  may  be  honest  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
particular  features  of  a  proposed  League  of  Nations. 
There  is  little  difference  of  opinion  among  men  of 
world-wide  and  Christian  temper  as  to  its  need  and 
possible  blessing.  And  here  the  pulpit  of  America 
is  practically  united.  Upon  no  other  public  question 
has  there  been  such  unanimity.  The  best  preachers 
of  America  have  spoken  in  no  uncertain  tones. 

The  first  year  of  the  war,  the  Reverend  William 
Temple  of  St.  James'  Church,  Piccadilly,  London,  son 
of  the  former  master  of  Rugby  and  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  made  a  notable  address  on  the  Spirit- 


28o  THE  PULPIT  AND  AMERICAN  LIFE 

ual  Call  of  the  War.  He  said  the  issue  of  the  war 
was  between  nationalism  that  owned  no  law  save  its 
own  interest,  and  something  higher.  The  reality 
higher  than  the  nation  was  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Only  as  we  live  in  the  light  of  this  great  vision,  and 
interpret  our  national  life  in  harmony  with  this  pur- 
pose of  God  shall  we  be  teachers  of  a  true  patriotism. 
The  nation  can  be  truly  great  only  as  a  part  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

In  St.  John's  vision  of  a  future  society,  the  test  is 
a  golden  reed,  **  according  to  the  measure  of  a  man, 
that  is  an  angel."  The  Christian  ideal  is  the  pattern 
after  which  we  must  build  every  social  and  national 
structure. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Lyman,  236 
Adams,  John,  250 
Allen,  A.  V.  G.,  19 
Asbury,  Francis,  203 
Authority,  275 

Bacon,  Leonard,  252 

Bacon,  William  Leonard,  254 

Bancroft,  George,  19 

Barnes,  Albert,  220,  254 

Bartol,  James  A.,  200 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  blend- 
ing of  contradictions, 
107-8;  four  elements  of  na- 


43;  Catherine  Beecher,  44; 
woodbee,  45;  Boston,  46; 
Cincinnati,  46 ;  theological 
contests,  48-49 ;  infidelity, 
49;  the  standing  order,  50; 
Unitarianism,  51 ;  influence 
on  American  life,  53;  ser- 
mons and  addresses,  55-6; 
physical  vitality,  57-8;  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual,  59- 
60;  Mrs.  Stowe,  60;  the 
preacher,  62-8;  defender  of 
historic  faith,  179-80,  252, 
254,  265 

ture     and     early     training.      Black,  Hugh,  235 
109-11;  influence  of  nature,      Blair,  James,  209 
112-3;      training      in      the      Bogardus,  3 
schools,       114;       elocution,      Bradford,  Amory  Howe,   185 
115,;       mathematics,       116;      Brent,  Bishop,  235 
physiology,   117;  early  reli-      Broadus,  John  A.,  190 
gious    experience,    117;    vi-      Brooks,    Phillips,    early    life, 


sion  of  Christ,  118;  Law- 
rencdburg,  Ind.,  120;  In- 
dianapolis, 121 ;  studies, 
122 ;  Plymouth  church,  123 ; 
sermons,  123-4;  speeches  in 
Great  Britain,  125 ;  writ- 
ings, 125;  trial,  125-6; 
thought  of  his  last  years, 
126;  characteristics  as 
preacher,  127-9,  213 
Beecher,  Lyman,  three  fold 
value  of  his  life,  40;  East 
Hampton,     41 ;      Litchfield, 


281 


130-2;  words  of  Arthur 
Brooks,  132;  loyalty,  133; 
Trinity  Church,  Boston, 
134;  lectures  at  Yale,  135; 
sermons  in  England,  136: 
public  service,  136;  minis- 
try to  young  men,  136-7; 
the  people's  minister,  137-8; 
Bishop,  138-40;  a  nation 
mourns,  140-1 ;  elements 
of  greatness,  141-44; 
speaking,  145 ;  message, 
146;     essentialness    of    th^ 


282 


INDEX 


Gospel,  146-9;  sonship  of 
man,  150;  optimism,  151-2, 
266 

Brown,  Charles  Reynolds,  235 

Buck,  Richard,  2 

Bushnell,  Horace,  country 
life,  87-^ ;  independence, 
89;  explorer,  90;  self-por- 
trait, 91 ;  early  religious  ex- 
perience, 92;  doubt,  93;  re- 
newed faith,  94;  stages  of 
experience,  97-8 ;  atone- 
ment, 96;  power-value  of 
experience,  97-8 ;  prayers, 
99 ;  sermons,  loo-i ;  viril- 
ity, 1 01 ;  imagination,  102-3 ; 
style,  103;  in  the  pulpit, 
105;  influence,  105;  mediat- 
ing thinker,  180-1,  254 

Byington  — "  Puritan  in  Eng- 
land and  N.  E.,"  246 


Cadman,  S.  Parkes,  235 
Canning,  Stratford,  213 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  216 
Cartwright,     Peter,    the    cir- 
cuit-rider, 204;  and  Lincoln, 
204 
Channing,      William     Ellery, 
early  forces,  72-74;  growth 
of    thought,    75;    preacher, 
77-8;    style,    79;    message, 
80;     conception     of     Jesus, 
80-1 ;    limitation,   81 ;    theo- 
logical   influence,   82;    ethi- 
cal,    83;     temperance     and 
anti-slavery,  84,  256,  267 
Church  and  State  in  early  N- 

E.,  243 
citizenship,  268 


Clarke,    James    Freeman,    of 
the      older      school,      199; 
"Ten  Great  Religions,"  200 
Clay,  Henry,  252 
Cofiin,  Henry  Sloane,  236 
Collyer,  Robert,  201-2 
Cotton,  John,  8,  12,  176,  244 
Coxe,  Arthur  Cleveland,  216 
Criticism  of  the  pulpit,  237 
Cuyler,  Theodore  L.,  222 

Davenport,  John,  7,  8,  177 
Davis,    Samuel,    influence    on 

Patrick  Henry,   10,  220 
Democrats,  249 
Doyle,  Father,  224 
Duff,  Alexander,  213 
Dwight,     Timothy,     progress 

of     the     clergyman,     9-10; 

first     notable     preacher    of 

the  national  life,   177-8 

Education,  minister's  place  in, 
9 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  European 
Contemporaries,  20-1 ;  in- 
fluence of  Locke,  22;  his 
idealism,  22;  resolutions, 
23;  habits  of  work,  23; 
ascetic,  24;  mystic,  25; 
diary,  25;  person,  26; 
message,  27 ;  philosophy, 
27;  God,  27;  man,  28;  re- 
generation, 29;  manner,  30; 
style,  31;  extracts,  33;  ap- 
peal to  fear,  33;  poetic  ele- 
ments, 34;  effect  of  ser- 
mons, 36-7;  prophetic  ele- 
ment, 38;  notable  figure  of 
the   1 8th  century,   177,  265, 

E^war(is,  Justin,  253 


INDEX 


283 


Eliot,  John,  apostle  to  the  In- 
dians, 177,  253 

Evangelism,  old  and  new, 
three  stages,  154;  past  and 
present,  163 ;  organization 
of  modern,  164;  individual- 
ism, 168;  pastoral,  169 

Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  **  Prophets 
of  the  Christian,  Faith,"  19, 
20 

Federalists,  249 

Finney,  Charles  G.,  religious 
experience,  155 ;  character- 
istics of  preaching,  156; 
lawyer's  habit  of  analysis, 
158;  appeal  to  conscience, 
158;  personality,  159;  influ- 
ence, 160,  254 

Fiske,  John,  246 

Fitch,  Albert  Parker,  235 

Fosdick,  Henry  Emerson,  236 

Frothingham,  O.  B.  and  the 
N.  E.  churches,  191 

Gage,  General,  247 
George,  Lloyd,  269 
Gibbons,  Cardinal,  224 
Gladden,  Washington,   185 
Goodell,  Charles  H.,  236 
Goodell,  Constans  L.,  182 
Gordon,   George  A.,    19,   229, 

236 
Gordon,  William,  248 
Green,  John  R.,  5 
Greer,  Bishop  David  H.,  231 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  200 
Hall,  John,  221 
Hamilton,     Alexander,     249, 
251 


Hamilton  College,  274 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  5 
Heacock,  Grosvenor,  222 
Henry,   Patrick,  220 
Henson,    Canon   Hensley,   lit- 
urgy and   preaching,   209 
Henson,  P.  S.,  190 
Hillis,  Dwight  N.,  236 
Hitchcock,  Roswell  D.,  22t 
Hodges,  Geo.,  229 
Holmes,  John  Haynes,  236 
Holmes,  Wm.  V.  V.,  236 
Hooker,  Thomas,  14,  177,  245, 

264 
Hopkins,  Samuel,  177 
Hoyt,  Way  land,  190 
Humphrey,  Heman,  253 
Hunt,  Robert,  2 

Ideals  of  the  Sermon,  228 

Idealism,  279 

Indians,  253 

Individual,     new     value     of, 

276-7 
Ireland,  Archbishop,  224 

Jackson,  Andrew,  252 

Jacobin,  250 

Jefferson,  Charles  E.,  229, 
232-3y  235 

Johnson,  Samuel,  first  Presi- 
dent of  King's  College,  211 

Kelman,  John,  236 
Kingdom  of  God,  280 
King's  Chapel,  244 
Kirke,  Dr.,  of  Baltimore,  235, 

236 
Knapp,  Jacob,  188 

League  gf  nations,  279 


284 


INDEX 


Lee,  Bishop,  212 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  265,  267 
Lord,  President,  255 
Lorimer,  Geo.  A.,  190 

Madison,  James,  249 
MacColl,  Alexander,  236 
McConnell,  Bishop,  208,  235 
McConnell,  S.  D.,  209 
McDowell,  Bishop,  208,  235 
Mcllvaine,      Charles      Pettit, 
211-13;    picture   by    Bishop 
Lee,    212;    words    of   arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  214 

McGlynn,  Father,  224 

Makemie,  Francis,  4,  246 

Manning,  Jacob  M.,   183 

Martineau,  James,  the  new 
orthodoxy,  82 

Mason,  John  M.,  220 

Mather,  Cotton,  the  magnalia, 
II ;  sermons,  15,  177 

Mather,  Increase,  244 

Mennonites,  253 

Merrill,  William  L.,  236 

Michaelius,  3 

Milton,  John,  264 

Moody,  Dwight  L.,  source  of 
message,  161 ;  message  com- 
pared with  Finney,  162;  ef- 
fect on  the  churches,  163; 
the  enquiry  room,  164 

Moravians,  245 

Mulford,  Elisha,  269 

Munger,  T.  T.,  185 

Nation,  Pulpit  and,  264 
National    life,    spiritual    con- 
ception of,  268 
Newton,  Richard,  216 


Nott,  Eliphalet,  251 

Olin,  Stephen,  206 
Order  and  Growth,  267 

Paine,  Thomas,  250 
Parks,  Leighton,  229,  234 
Parker,     Theodore,     extreme 
protestant,  192;  Moral  sen- 
sitiveness,    193-4;     cardinal 
points    of    his    faith,     194; 
master  of   literatures,    195; 
spirituality,      196;      thinker 
not     orator,      197;     ethical 
message,  198 
Parkhurst,    Charles    H.,    230, 

235 

Paterson,  W.  P.,  273 

Patriotism,  275 

Paulist  Fathers,  224 

Phelps,  Austin,  254 

Pilgrims  and  Puritans,  union 
in  New  World,  175 

Potter,  Bishop  Henry  C,  In- 
tro., 262 

Prevost,  Bishop,  211 

Pulpit,  American  history  and, 
1 7 1-2 

Pulpit,  Congregational,  early 
ministers  from  Immanuel 
College,  Cambridge,  176;  a 
notable  pulpit,  176;  dis- 
tinctive contribution,  185 

Pulpit,  Baptist,  views,  186; 
rapid  growth,  188;  dis- 
tinctive  contribution,    190 

Pulpit,  Unitarian,  forces, 
191-2;  influence  of,  202 

Pulpit,  Methodist,  lay  preach- 
er of  the  colonies,  203; 
fervent     evangelists,     206 ; 


INDEX 


285 


growth   of   education,   206; 

special  contribution,  208 
Pulpit,    Episcopal,    early   hin- 

derances,     209-ia ;     special 

contribution,  217 
Pulpit,       Presb(y.terian,      two 

streams    of    influence,   218; 

the    pioneers,    219;    special 

influence,  223 
Pulpit,  other  churches,  Quak- 
ers,    Reformed,     Disciples, 

Catholics,  224 
Pulpit,      Present      American. 

Compared      with      English 

and  Scotch,  240 
Puritanism,  5 

Quakers,  223 
Quale,  Bishop,  208 

Revolution,  American,  minis- 
ter in,  248 

Robinson,  E.  G.,  189 

Robinson,  John,  farewell  ser- 
mon, 13 

Root,  Elihu,  274 

Rush,  Benjamin,  252 

Ruskin,  John,  269 

Scarlet  Letter,  The,  5 
Seabury,  Bishop,  211 
Sectarianism,  240 
Seminary,  Theological,  226 
Sermon,     present     and     past, 

227 
Seymour,  Sir  Edward,  210 
Simeon,  Charles,  213 
Simpson,  Mathew,  206-7 
Slavery,  American,  254 
Smuts,  General,  27S 


Social    questions,    the    minis- 
ter's attitude  to,  257-62 
Spaulding,  Bishop,  224 
Speech  in  a  Republic,  239 
Stalker,  James,  158 
Stone,  John  Timothy,  236 
Storrs,   Richard   S.,  interpre- 
ter  of   life,   181 ;   apologist, 
182 ;     extempore     preacher, 
182,  254 
Stowe,    Harriet    Beecher,    5, 

16 
Sunday,  William  A.,  doctrine, 
165;     reformer,     166;     vir- 
tues and  defects,  167-8 

Taylor,  William  M.,  30,  184 
Taylor,  William  R.,  236 
Tennant,  219 
Tennyson,  Lord,  267 
Temple,  William,  279 
Thackeray,  the  clergyman  of 

Virginia,  i 
Thompson,  Joseph  P.,  254 
Thompson,  Robert  E.,  219 
Tyng,  Stephen  H.,  215 

Unitarianism,  the  growth  of, 

71 
Unity,  Social,  266 

Variety     in     American     ser- 
mons, 235 
Vincent,  John  H.,  208 
Vinton,  Alexander  H.,  215 
Virginians,  The,   i 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  211 
Ward,  Nathaniel,  244 
War,  World  and  pulpit,  270-3 
Watson,  John,  humanness  in 


286 


INDEX 


preaching,    228;    return    of 

the  Gospel,  238 
Wayland,  Francis,  189 
Webster,  Daniel,  255,  265 
Wendell,  Barrett,  11 
White,  Bishop,  211 
Whittaker,  Alexander,  2 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  219 
Williams,  Bishop  C.  D.,  236 
Williams,       Roger,       notable 

name     in     Baptist    history, 

186;  character,  187;  prophet 


of    religious    freedom,    187, 

247,  264 
Williams,  William,  189 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  266,  272 
Wise,  Rabbi,  236 
Woelfkin,   Cornelius,  236 
Wood,  Charles,  236 
Woolman,  John,  4,  223 
Wordsworth,  William,  272 

Y.  M.  C.  A,  274 


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